Guide Exploring New Orleans, Louisiana U.S.A. | SolarTravels.com

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href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?action=viewLocation&locationId=41713&cid=183795' class='guides-bold'>USA</a> <a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?action=viewLocation&locationId=42941&cid=183795' class='guides-bold'>Louisiana</a> <a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?action=viewLocation&locationId=42942&cid=183795' class='guides-bold'>New Orleans</a> <div class="guides-Spacer7"></div> <form name="neighForm" action="http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp" method="get"> <input type="hidden" name="cid" value="183795"> <input type="hidden" name="action" value="viewLocation"> <table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td valign="middle" class="guides-tophdrLine" nowrap="nowrap" width="100%"><img src="http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif" border="0" height="17" width="5" alt="" /><span class="guides-tophdrWhite">New Orleans</span><img src="http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif" border="0" height="17" width="5" alt="" /></td> <td valign="middle" align="right" class="guides-tophdrLine"> <select name="locationId" style="width:130px;" OnChange="javascript:formSubmit(document.neighForm, document.neighForm.locationId);"> <option>-- Neighborhoods --</option> <option value="42943">French Quarter</option> <option value="42950">Outside the French Quarter</option> </select><img src="http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif" border="0" height="17" width="5" alt="" /> </td> </tr> </table> </form> <script language="JavaScript">  </script>  <div class="guides-Spacer7"> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" width="100%"> <tr>  <td width="150" valign="top"> <div class="guides-Spacer7"> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" width="150"> <tr> <td width="100%" class="guides-rsbOptions" valign="bottom"> Travel Options</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="guides-rsbOptionsBorder"> <table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" border="0"> <tr> <td><a href="http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=airSearch&additionalData=viaGuides&cid=183795">Flights</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=hotSearch&additionalData=viaGuides&cid=183795">Hotels</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=condos&additionalData=viaGuides&cid=183795">Vacation Rentals</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=carSearch&additionalData=viaGuides&cid=183795">Cars</a></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </div>  <div class="guides-Spacer7"></div> <table border='0' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='0' width='100%'> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103171'><span class='guides-bold'>New Orleans</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5'> </td> <td> <table cellspacing='0' cellpadding='3' border='0'> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top' align='center'> </td><td><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103172'>The City</a></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103173'><span class='guides-bold'>Arrival</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103174'><span class='guides-bold'>Information</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103176'><span class='guides-bold'>Staying Safe</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103177'><span class='guides-bold'>City Transportation</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103181'><span class='guides-bold'>Macabre New Orleans</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103184'><span class='guides-bold'>Eating</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103188'><span class='guides-bold'>Entertainment And Nightlife</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103227'><span class='guides-bold'>Best Of</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103175'><span class='guides-bold'>City Tours And River Cruises</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103182'><span class='guides-bold'>The Mississippi</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103183'><span class='guides-bold'>Mardi Gras</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=exploreLocation&locationId=42942'><span class='guides-bold'>Explore New Orleans</span></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=hotSearch&additionalData=viaGuides&city=New+Orleans&stateProvince=LA&country=US&validateCity=true&submitted=true&specials=false&showHotels=true&isHotels=true&showCondos=false&isCondos=false&netOnly=false&cid=183795'><span class='guides-bold'>Hotels in New Orleans</span></a></td> </tr> </table> <img src="http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif" border="0" height="7" width="150" alt="" /> </td>  <td width="7"><img src="http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif" border="0" height="1" width="7" alt="" /></td>  <td width="100%" valign="top"><div class="guides-Spacer7"></div>  <table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" border="0"> <tr> <td width="5" class="guides-Bluehighlightbar"><img src="http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif" border="0" height="1" width="5" alt="" /></td> <td class="guides-Bluehighlightbar">NEW ORLEANS</td> <td width="7" class="guides-Bluehighlightbar"><img src="http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif" border="0" height="1" width="7" alt="" /></td> </tr> </table> <div class="guides-Spacer7"></div> <table width='100%' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0' border='0' class='guides-OrngBox2'> <tr> <td width='7'><img src='http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif' border='0' height='1' width='7' alt='' /></td> <td class='guides-OrngBoxText' valign='middle'>BE THERE NOW</td> </tr> </table> <div align='center'> <table cellspacing='0' cellpadding='5' border='0' width='100%'> <tr> <td valign='middle'> <span class='guides-bold'>Hotels in New Orleans</span></td> </tr> </table> <table cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0' border='0' width='100%' > <tr> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td><td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=hotInfo&showInfo=true&showPopup=true&additionalData=viaGuides&hotelID=119241&cid=183795'>Garden District Hotel</a></td> <td valign='top' align='right' nowrap>New Orleans <img src='http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif' height='1' width='12'><i>from</i> $52.00 <b>USD</b> </td> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td><td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=hotInfo&showInfo=true&showPopup=true&additionalData=viaGuides&hotelID=116792&cid=183795'>Ambassador Hotel New Orleans</a></td> <td valign='top' align='right' nowrap>New Orleans <img src='http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif' height='1' width='12'><i>from</i> $74.00 <b>USD</b> </td> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td><td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=hotInfo&showInfo=true&showPopup=true&additionalData=viaGuides&hotelID=207672&cid=183795'>Hotel Royal</a></td> <td valign='top' align='right' nowrap>New Orleans <img src='http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif' height='1' width='12'><i>from</i> $75.00 <b>USD</b> </td> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td> </tr> </table> <table cellspacing='0' cellpadding='5' border='0' width='100%' > <tr> <td><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=hotSearch&additionalData=viaGuides&city=New+Orleans&stateProvince=LA&country=US&validateCity=true&submitted=true&specials=false&showHotels=true&isHotels=true&showCondos=false&isCondos=false&netOnly=false&cid=183795' class='guides-bold'>More Hotels in New Orleans </a></td> </tr> </table> </div> <div align='center'> <table cellspacing='0' cellpadding='5' border='0' width='100%'> <tr> <td valign='middle'> <span class='guides-bold'>Vacation Rentals in New Orleans</span></td> </tr> </table> <table cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0' border='0' width='100%' > <tr> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td><td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=hotInfo&showInfo=true&showPopup=true&additionalData=viaGuides&hotelID=245992&cid=183795'>La Maison Marigny B&B</a></td> <td valign='top' align='right' nowrap>New Orleans <img src='http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif' height='1' width='12'><i>from</i> $129.00 <b>USD</b> </td> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td><td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=hotInfo&showInfo=true&showPopup=true&additionalData=viaGuides&hotelID=224999&cid=183795'>Garden District B&B</a></td> <td valign='top' align='right' nowrap>New Orleans <img src='http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif' height='1' width='12'><i>from</i> $108.00 <b>USD</b> </td> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td><td width='5' valign='top'><strong> </strong> </td><td width='100%'><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=hotInfo&showInfo=true&showPopup=true&additionalData=viaGuides&hotelID=251425&cid=183795'>Magnolia Mansion</a></td> <td valign='top' align='right' nowrap>New Orleans <img src='http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif' height='1' width='12'><i>from</i> $195.00 <b>USD</b> </td> <td valign='top' width='24' nowrap> </td> </tr> </table> <table cellspacing='0' cellpadding='5' border='0' width='100%' > <tr> <td><a href='http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?pageName=hotSearch&additionalData=viaGuides&city=New+Orleans&stateProvince=LA&country=US&validateCity=true&submitted=true&specials=false&showHotels=false&isHotels=false&showCondos=true&isCondos=true&propertyType=C&cid=183795' class='guides-bold'>More Vacation Rentals in New Orleans </a></td> </tr> </table> </div> <div class="guides-Spacer7"></div> <table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" class="guides-OrngBox2"> <tr> <td width="7"><img src="http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif" border="0" height="1" width="7" alt="" /></td> <td class="guides-OrngBoxText" valign="middle">READ IT HERE</td> </tr> </table> <div class="sectionSpacer"> <P> There's a lot more to <B>NEW ORLEANS</B> the ''Big Easy,'' the ''city that care forgot'' than its tourist image as a nonstop party town. At once sordid and sublime, it careers along under an infuriating doublethink. While having enormous amounts of fun, you're liable to be repeatedly struck by the divisions between rich and poor (and, more explicitly, between white and black). Even so, the city's vitality and <I>joie de vivre</I> are real, buffeted but not beaten by the vagaries of commercialism and poverty. The melange of cultures and races that built the city still gives it its heart; not ''easy,'' exactly, but quite unlike anywhere else in the States or the world. </P> <P> New Orleans began life in 1718 as a <B>French-Canadian</B> outpost. Its prime location near the mouth of the <B>Mississippi River</B> , however, led to rapid development, as early as the 1720s, its unique demography began to take shape. Despite early resistance from its francophone population, the city benefited greatly from its period as a <B>Spanish</B> colony between 1763 and 1800. By the end of the eighteenth century, the <B>port</B> was flourishing, the haunt of smugglers, gamblers, prostitutes and pirates. Newcomers included Anglo-Americans escaping the American Revolution and aristocrats fleeing revolution in France. As in the West Indies, the Spanish, French and free people of color associated and formed alliances to create a distinctive <B> Creole</B> culture with its own traditions and ways of life, its own patois, and a cuisine that drew influences from Africa, Europe and the colonies. New Orleans was already a many-textured city when it experienced two quick-fire changes of government, passing back into French control in 1801 and then being sold to <B>America</B> under the Louisiana Purchase two years later. Unwelcome in the Creole city today's French Quarter the Americans who migrated here were forced to settle in the areas now known as the <B>Central Business District</B> (or <B>CBD</B> ) and, later, in the <B>Garden District</B> . Canal Street, which divided the old city from the expanding suburbs, became known as ''the neutral ground'' the name still used when referring to the median strip between main roads in New Orleans. </P> <P> Though much has been made of the antipathy between Creoles and Anglo-Americans, in truth economic necessity forced them to live and work together. They fought side by side, too, in the 1815 <B> Battle of New Orleans</B> , the final battle of the War of 1812, which secured American supremacy in the States. The victorious general, <B>Andrew Jackson</B> , became a national hero and eventually US president; his ragbag volunteer army was made up of Anglo-Americans, slaves, Creoles, free men of color and Native Americans, along with pirates supplied by the notorious buccaneer <B>Jean Lafitte</B> . </P> <P> New Orleans' antebellum '' <B>golden age</B> '' as a major port and finance center for the cotton-producing South was brought to an abrupt end by the Civil War. The economic blow wielded by the lengthy Union occupation which effectively isolated the city from its markets was compounded by the social and cultural ravages of <B>Reconstruction</B> . As the North industrialized and other Southern cities grew, the fortunes of New Orleans took a downturn. </P> <P> <B>Jazz</B> exploded into the bars and the bordellos around 1900, and, along with the evolution of <B>Mardi Gras</B> as a tourist attraction, breathed new life into the city. And although the Depression hit here as hard as it did the rest of the nation it also, spearheaded by a number of local writers and artists, heralded the resurgence of the <B>French Quarter</B> , which had disintegrated into a slum. Even so, it was the less romantic duo of <B>oil</B> and <B>petrochemicals</B> that really saved the economy until the slump of the 1950s pushed New Orleans well behind other US cities. The oil crash of the early 1980s gave it yet another battering, a gloomy start, but by the end of the century the tide had begun to turn, and the city now finds itself in relatively stable condition with a strengthening economy based on <B>tourism</B> . </P> </div> <div class="guides-Spacer7"> <b>The City</b><br> One of New Orleans' many nicknames is the Crescent City , because of the way it nestles between the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain and a dramatic horseshoe bend in the Mississippi River. This unique location makes the city's...<br> <a href="http://www.travelnow.com/index.jsp?cid=183795&action=viewLocation&formId=103172">read more </a><br> <br> One of New Orleans' many nicknames is "the Crescent City ," because of the way it nestles between the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain and a dramatic horseshoe bend in the Mississippi River. This unique location makes the city's layout confusing, with streets curving to follow the river, and shooting off at odd angles to head inland. Compass points are of little use here - locals refer instead to lakeside (towards the lake) and riverside (towards the river), and, using Canal Street as the dividing line, uptown (or upriver) and downtown (downriver). <br><br> Most visitors spend most time in the battered, charming old French Quarter (or Vieux Carr� ), site of the original settlement. On its fringes, the funky Faubourg Marigny creeps northeast from Esplanade Avenue, while the Quarter's lakeside boundary, Rampart Street , marks the beginning of the historic, run-down African-American neighborhood of Trem� . On the other side of the Quarter, across Canal Street , the CBD (Central Business District), bounded by the river and I-10, spreads upriver to the Pontchartrain Expressway. Dominated by offices, hotels and banks, it also incorporates the revitalizing Warehouse District and, towards the lake, the gargantuan Superdome . A ferry ride across the river from the foot of Canal Street takes you to the suburban west bank and the residential district of old Algiers . <br><br> Back on the east bank, it's an easy journey upriver from the CBD to the rare-fied Garden District , an area of gorgeous old mansions, some of them in delectable ruin. The Lower Garden District , creeping between the expressway and Jackson, is quite a different creature, its run-down old houses filled with impoverished artists and musicians. The best way to get to either neighborhood is on the streetcar along swanky St Charles Avenue , the Garden District's lakeside boundary; you can also approach it from Magazine Street , a six-mile stretch of galleries and antique stores that runs parallel to St Charles riverside. Entering the Garden District, you've crossed the official boundary into uptown , which spreads upriver to encompass Audubon Park and Zoo . </div> <br> </td>  </tr> </table>  </div> </td> <td width="7"><img src="http://www.travelnow.com/images/p.gif" border="0" height="1" width="7" alt="" /></td> </tr> </table> </td>  </tr> </table> <table width="100%" align="center" class="footerwh" summary="Copyright"> <tr> <td width="70%"> Copyright© 2005 <a href="http://www.solartravels.com" class="bottomlink">Solar Travels</a> All Rights Reserved </td> <td width="30%" align="right"> Site Is Powered By: <a href="http://www.mywebdev.com" target="_blank" class="bottomlink">MyWebDev.com</a> </td> </tr> </table> </body>