Next morning, after a dawn run through the pretty streets of Natchez, we have time to explore one of the former plantation owners’ mansions in the town. It may not be as stuffed full of antiques as Choctaw Mansion, so we are told, but Stanton House is definitely the grandest looking building in town. An imposing, white stately home on the corner of one of the most impressive streets, it’s surrounded by lawns and ornate railings, and we rock up for tickets for the first tour of the day at 9am.
Our tour guide is a young man called Micah, who is one of God’s special children. Having learnt his script for crowds big or small, he cannot deviate from it and any unexpected question or little wander off to see something he’s not talking about, results in OCD levels of incomprehension for him. So we play nice and follow him around, allowing him to tell us the history of the House by rote, pointing out the trials and tribulations of the Stanton family, originally hailing from Belfast, who moved over when Daddy Stanton made a fortune as a merchant in the cotton trade.
With an eye on our ticking watch we try and hurry him along from room to room, but he finishes each lesson in his slow, strong, Southern drawl, each syllable taking longer than the last, not really understanding the fact that we need to be on our way to make it to New Orleans by 3pm… so we can drop off the car before the rental place shuts for the day, it being the weekend.
Eventually we come to the end of the tour and jump in the car for the final leg of our journey to the city locals call The Big Easy. However, before we leave Natchez, there are a few more Antebellum homes I want to see, so with map in hand I direct Coman on circuit of grandeur around the outlying mansions, including Dunleith, Rosalie, Monmouth Inn and pulling into the grounds of Longwood, where at almost runners pace we check out the grounds and façade before flooring it towards Louisiana.
Sadly we have to leave Highway 61 and the Blues Trail as we’ve been warned that Baton Rouge, which is on the route, has a big Memorial Day festival happening and the roads will be massively congested. Instead we head cross country via the scenic Highway 84 and connect with US 93, driving into New Orleans from the north rather than the west.
The interstate weaves high over the Delta waters as we approach the city, the brown waters of the Mississippi merging with the blue of Lake Pontchartrain and eventually – after a high-stress hunt for a gas station and a sat nav directing us somewhat eccentrically – we make it to the Avis offices on Canal St, with just minutes to spare before it closes.
By God it’s hot!! Our wait on the kerbside for an Uber to take us to the Bourbon Orleans Hotel sees us wilting in seconds and once the driver has crawled us through the snarled-up traffic of the French Quarter we hit the iced water on reception with the thirst of dying men. Bags safely stowed in our room, and hydration levels restored, we venture onto the thronged streets, stopping first for lunch at the very Vampire Lestat-style restaurant Pierre Antoine, where in keeping with the spirit of the city we order a vegetable creole jumbalaya, a veggie po’boy sandwich and a huge bloody mary.
The spirit of the city engulfs us as we leave the restaurant and walk straight into a uniformed brass band who are celebrating a wedding party procession with the strains of ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’, blasting their way down Royal Street, complete with dancing tuba player. We weave our way through the crowds, and down a side street behind the St. Louis cathedral, into Jackson Square, where in 1803 the French handed over control of New Orleans to the United States.
The square is heaving with crowds checking out the street artists on display, and after a little bit of shopping in the surrounding streets, eyeing up carnival masks (one of which we succumb to the following day, all steampunk & feathers) we give up on sight-seeing, the ridiculous heat sapping every ounce of energy from us. Instead we go for a swim in the hotel’s lovely courtyard pool and have a siesta to brace ourselves for the assault on the senses that is Bourbon Street at night.
In 2005, a month to the day before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, I was in New Orleans for a work trip and had been told by a number of people in advance that Bourbon Street was “wild”. Yeah, yeah I thought… I’ve seen a few things in my time, been to a few places, how wild can it be? Let’s say that night, in a rum-fuelled haze, with multi-coloured beads around my neck, music pumping around me and thousands of crazed party-goers spilling onto the streets, my eyes were well-and-truly opened. Bourbon Street on a Saturday night was indeed “wild”.
In 2019, as a somewhat more refined couple – and, of course, older – all the pair of us want is a great place to eat and a spot to observe the hedonism from the fringes. So, disco nap taken, we leave the air-conditioned sanctuary of our hotel and walk through the almost liquid humidity to Cubaña, a Mexican restaurant with an extensive vegan menu, which is absolutely delicious. Decorated with imagery in the suitably spooky tradition of the Day of the Dead it also boasts a fine tequila menu from which we order a mescal margarita and a Coconada cocktail… fuel for the sights to come.
We start with a little detour away from the craziest action by heading towards the faux-baroque splendour of the Hotel Monteleone, and the revolving Carousel Bar, where Truman Capote used to hold court. Unsurprisingly it’s completely rammed with Instagramming tourists and dressed-to-the-nines socialites so a quick tick in the “must-see” box later, we’re out the door and into the thick of the action.
Neither hurricanes nor war have tamed its edge for back on Bourbon Street, as for every night for the past 200 years, the bacchanalian proceedings are in full swing; its array of speakeasy’s, honky tonks, strip clubs, gay bars, voodoo shops, drag queens and nefarious shopfronts a riot of colour and noise. Revellers clutching huge ‘big ass’ beers and giant slush puppy daiquiris surge through the street, the smell of weed as thick as the waistlines of some of the partygoers we try to squeeze past.
Climbing up to the relative sanity of a balcony bar we watch the drunken mass of humanity dancing around each other, clad in feathers and beads, parading up and down Bourbon in search of the next bar, the next party, the next carnival of revelry. On my last visit 14 years ago I’d been quaffing down the margaritas, bouncing from soul-diva jazz joints to go-go boy gay bars to guitar-shakin’ blues clubs, and dancing until he wee small hours… but tonight it’s enough to observe from above and meander our way back to the hotel. I’m just not built for the hangovers anymore!