Saturday 5 November - Daphne Alabama to New Orleans Louisiana

Survived our night at the Best Western Daphne with our door secured only by the night lock as the door lock itself would not hold closed. Jessica also had a very uncomfortable night trying to sleep on a sofa bed that was beyond its use by date.

Drove through Mobile and then out of Alabama and into Mississippi before finally reaching our last state of Louisiana. Chuck, the GPS, navigated well and even took us just past our B & B so that we had parking! We eventually located Monrose Row when Cindy, the owner, came out on to the footpath as she had missed our phone call. Check in was scheduled for 3pm so we opted to leave all our luggage in the car and planned to head off on foot to get a glimpse of the French Quarter. Cindy provided us with a map and suggestions for an authentic place to have some lunch and took us the two heart starting flights of stairs to see our attic rooms. Needless to say the building is beautiful and the rooms fabulous and Jessica should sleep well on a modern style sofa bed tonight.

Off headed the three explorers and walked down Governor Nicholls Street to Decateur Street and then headed along towards the CBD proper. Cindy had recommended Olivier's for some authentic creole food for lunch and when we were about to give up and try somewhere else and Jessica was about to start chewing on her hand, the restaurant was spotted. In we went and perused the lunch menu - Philip and Alison had wanted to try the Gumbo and as we had decided that we would also order an entree (main) we opted for the cup size! We would have been overloaded if we had chosen the bowl size. The Gumbo was not the colour that Alison had expected - Philip didn't know what to expect - but was certainly tasty. Jessica decided that she needed something other than water to drink so was convinced to have one of the house specialities, a Hurricane. Fruit juices and dark rum. Needless to say Philip ended up drinking most of the Hurricane! Along with the soup we were served corn bread soaked with a honey butter sauce. Then along came our mains - Red Fish Fillets for Jessica and catfish jambalaya for Philip and Alison. One of the senior staff came past and asked if we needed more corn bread but we indicated that as good as it was we were fine. Well when he brought our main meals out he provided us with another round of corn bread, a side of buttered okra and a side of turnip greens. What a feast - he told us that we should enjoy and take our time as it was a lazy Saturday afternoon. We have the second round of corn bread back at the B & B to have with a cup of tea.

Walked back to Monrose Row and reversed the car up the one way street to a parking spot right in front of the door and the unloaded all our luggage and with Cindy's help carted it up the stairs to the attic. As this is our last stop we need to re-arrange all the luggage for the flight home. Cindy did offer for us to use the dining room on the ground floor as we are the only guests for the next few days but we opted for the extra aerobic exercise!

Cindy had suggested that we visit Frenchman Street this evening as it has a number of live music venues so we had a rest and then freshened up and put on some "evening clothes" and headed off on foot again. On the way Jessica was able to point out Brad Pitt's New Orleans home which is in our street! No lights on there tonight.

We walked up and down Frenchman Street listening to the music from the outside of the venues. Philip and Alison are not real jazz fans so that sufficed. We visited an artist's market and then wandered along window shopping

This colourful alligator ready for Mardi Gras caught our eyes

on our way back to the famous Cafe du Monde for cafe au laid and beignets.

Maybe as Cafe du Monde is open 24/7 the staff need to catch a rest when ever possible!

Apart from the danger of getting icing sugar spilt on our coats and dark clothes, this was a lovely way to finish of the evening and also then gave us some more energy to walk at least half of Bourbon Street where the drinking was in full swing as was the music.

Now we are all safely back at Monrose and had no worries walking the streets to get back - felt totally safe.