To New Orleans - New Orleans, LA
New Orleans, LA
Ok, I've probably bored you all enough with planes already, but today will be the last time, . . . probably ;-) Pensacola just so happens to be home to the National Naval Aviation Museum. Over 100 aircraft & only a couple of hours to spare left my head spinning. All the aircraft are immaculately presented & no barriers to stop you going right up to them, touching them & looking right inside them, i must sound like some kinky pervert ;-) Some pretty historically significant aircraft too, including a Dauntless dive bomber which is the only surviving plane from the battle of Midway, the most pivotal battle in naval aviation. The afternoon saw us driving to New Orleans, we covered 4 states in 3 hours today, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi & Louisiana!! Alabama & Mississippi though being largish states are very narrow down south. A lot of driving was over massive long bridges over swamplands & lakes. We've managed over the last couple of days to spot a number of raccoons and even a hedgehog we think, all road kill of course! Cute little robbers they may be, apparently not so good with the road sense! On arrival in New Orleans we checked into the Provincial Hotel, housed in beautiful old buildings in the heart of the historic French Quarter. Later we found out that our Hotel is quite haunted, I even found one website that listed a top 10 haunted hotels in America, . . . And it came in at number 1 !!! Luckily no paranormal encounters for us in our stay. Coincidently the Queen Mary where we are staying in LA come in at number 10 on the same list. The French Quarter has amazing old buildings, all wrought iron balconies overflowing with gardens, narrow streets & different smells every few metres, some amazing, some not so! Each of the main streets seems to have a different flavour; Burgundy & Dauphine are mainly residential; the famous Bourbon St is all sleaze, adult clubs, hose out bars offering daiquiri slushies & pizza, & live music; Royal St is all antique shops & boutiques; & Chartres seems to have all the best restaurants. Interestingly most of the buildings are actually of Spanish influence rather than French as a great fire destroyed most of the houses & it was rebuilt at a time when it was under Spanish control. Also of note there a lot of high walls impregnated with broken glass or spikes & barbed wire, & shuttered lower windows. The area has quite a reputation for crime, but we saw no evidence of that while we were there, in fact we haven't yet had any moments on the whole trip where we've felt unsafe, touch wood.