After two days on the train, we made it to New Orleans! This is the firehouse at Louis Armstrong Park (Nene took this photo).
We started our days with a visit to Cafe Beignet on Royal St. Nene got beignets, and I brought a cinnamon roll from Breads on Oak.
Then we’d go exploring, looking for interesting shops, alleys, or courtyards. This alley had a life-size pirate statue in it!
So we went inside the pirate store! It turned out to be Jean Lafitte Trading Company. At a time when the Louisiana Purchase was new and the area around New Orleans was wild marshland, Lafitte used his pirate skills to get goods into New Orleans. Through his trading company, people could buy clothes, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, and other goodies at a reasonable price. He was in his early forties when he met his end trying to take what he thought were two Spanish merchant vessels. They turned out to be Spanish warships.
We found some delightful courtyards behind some of the shops. (This is behind the KREWE flagship store.)
New Orleans isn’t exactly a vegan paradise, but the vegan food they do have is top notch. I feel like Breads on Oak is one of the best vegan restaurants in the country. I had four of my six New Orleans meals there this time. It’s SO GOOD.

Here we have the Muffanada sandwich (ham, bacon, olive salad, tomato, spinach, provolone, and aioli on a levain roll) and the cinnamon roll with nuts. They make the bread themselves, and it’s delightfully soft and completely delicious.
Wandering in and out of shops. LolaNOLA had some stunning jewelry.
Fleur de Paris was an impressive milliner with every hat you could think of (in the back room they were actively brainstorming new hats), plus some of the most exquisite clothes I’ve ever seen. The floral print on that pink dress was hand-painted.
I failed to take photos of it, but it was Halloween time! Some of the buildings had awesome decorations.
Probably the most impressive sight this time was an exquisite embroidered dress at Antieau Gallery. It’s called the “Birds of Prey Dress,” and it’s for sale for $65,000. Artist Chris Roberts-Antieau started sewing in 7th grade, and part of her artist statement says, “I never learned what NOT to do … (for this I am grateful–eternally.) I just had a voice inside that I listened to.” The wall prints were also embroidery.
Our plan was to walk the length of as many French Quarter streets as possible. We got four of them! (Chartres, Royal, Bourbon, and Dauphine.) Nene took this photo.
Some delightful souvenir shops.
Nene found the best hotel. Every day at 4 pm they have a PB&J bar. There’s white and wheat bread under the napkin on the left, then there’s pots with peanut butter and two kinds of jelly. They also serve cold milk and hot chocolate (in the winter).

The hotel sits on property that has been a plantation (which shut down because cultivating indigo resulted in “poisonous vapors” that killed people), a vacant lot (home to “foul deeds and midnight murders”), a train depot, a theater (destroyed by fire in 1889), then a hotel (that supposedly had a prohibition-era tunnel in case guests needed to escape).
St. Louis Cathedral.
Our last supper in New Orleans was at Carmo, which isn’t all vegan, but is vegan friendly. It’s tropical food, and takes inspiration from Southeast Asia, West Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. This is the Peruano (white beans, quinoa, sweet potato, avocado, salsa Criolla, and sausage), and it is delicious.
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