Cemetery Cruising in Nola
Apr. 24th, 2023 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerNew Orleans travelog #7
French Quarter - Monday, 23 Apr 2023, 3pm
We've been doing a bit of sightseeing each day in New Orleans. Yesterday we met with a local friend for another self-guided tour around the French Quarter and Faubourg-Marigny. Today we discussed options for sightseeing before we walked out to lunch at Café Beignet. We intended to visit a couple of Louisiana museums in the 'Quarter... but when we arrived there after lunch we found them closed for the day. Unfortunately that wasn't made clear on their websites. Thus we fell back to our #2 pick for the day, cemetery cruising.
Visiting New Orleans' cemeteries is a big thing for some visitors. I'm kind of like, "Enh." One, there's dead people everywhere; how's this different? And two, stuff about spirits and voodoo and other hokum is... well, all hokum. So it doesn't seem terribly interesting to me. But the museums are closed, so cemetery cruising it is!
Next was the question of which cemetery. Nearby was St. Louis Cemetery #1, the oldest in New Orleans... but it's accessible only by tour guide with a cost of $25 per person. Thanks, Catholic Church[1]. 🙄 There's another that's free, but it's a few miles away. We checked the cost of Ubering over there and found it'd cost as much as one entry ticket just to go back and forth. So we decided to pay the Catholic Diocese its dues and walk there, 4-5 blocks from our hotel.
Details and pictures coming soon.
_____
[1] I roll my eyes at the Catholic Church charging admission for even simple things like seeing the inside of a historic church because as I have visited many cities in numerous countries I've found it the only religion that routinely charges for entry. Yes, other religions ask that you be respectful— of course— but they don't charge for entry. They're happy for visitors to learn about their faith.
French Quarter - Monday, 23 Apr 2023, 3pm
We've been doing a bit of sightseeing each day in New Orleans. Yesterday we met with a local friend for another self-guided tour around the French Quarter and Faubourg-Marigny. Today we discussed options for sightseeing before we walked out to lunch at Café Beignet. We intended to visit a couple of Louisiana museums in the 'Quarter... but when we arrived there after lunch we found them closed for the day. Unfortunately that wasn't made clear on their websites. Thus we fell back to our #2 pick for the day, cemetery cruising.
Visiting New Orleans' cemeteries is a big thing for some visitors. I'm kind of like, "Enh." One, there's dead people everywhere; how's this different? And two, stuff about spirits and voodoo and other hokum is... well, all hokum. So it doesn't seem terribly interesting to me. But the museums are closed, so cemetery cruising it is!
Next was the question of which cemetery. Nearby was St. Louis Cemetery #1, the oldest in New Orleans... but it's accessible only by tour guide with a cost of $25 per person. Thanks, Catholic Church[1]. 🙄 There's another that's free, but it's a few miles away. We checked the cost of Ubering over there and found it'd cost as much as one entry ticket just to go back and forth. So we decided to pay the Catholic Diocese its dues and walk there, 4-5 blocks from our hotel.
Details and pictures coming soon.
_____
[1] I roll my eyes at the Catholic Church charging admission for even simple things like seeing the inside of a historic church because as I have visited many cities in numerous countries I've found it the only religion that routinely charges for entry. Yes, other religions ask that you be respectful— of course— but they don't charge for entry. They're happy for visitors to learn about their faith.
