The one thing you should do when you visit New Orleans is you should take the St. Charles Avenue streetcar to see the cityscape Uptown. What’s better than taking the streetcar Uptown? Staying at an Uptown B&B. This is a beautiful neighborhood built by cotton brokers, merchants, and other movers-and-shaker millionaires who made their homes here as New Orleans expanded upriver after the Civil War. It really is beautiful, genteel, relaxed, and with all the amenities anyone visiting a historic city can hope to expect.
Uptown is home to both Tulane and Loyola Universities and parents visiting their family’s scholars stay in Uptown B&Bs to be close to campus. Uptown is also home to the Audubon Zoo and Audubon Park, the other major scenic park in New Orleans. Views of the busy Mississippi River traffic can be enjoyed from the Fly, a part of Audubon Park that is also the site of many of the city’s intramural sports leagues. What a way to spend an afternoon—-just like a local.
Make yourself in New Orleans in New Orleans’ Uptown neighborhood at an Uptown B&B and you will be close to a number of exclusive neighborhood restaurants off the usual tourist radar. Magazine Street runs through Uptown. This six mile long street is New Orleans’ main shopping destination. There are very few chain stores in New Orleans. If you are looking for a taste of the local culture, you’ll find it on Magazine Street with its small boutiques, craft cocktail bars and modern creole influenced stylish restaurants.
St. Charles Avenue is the route all the major Mardi Gras parades take when make their way to the rest of the city. See the floats and enjoy the festivities from their starting point. There is nothing like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The action is thick and joyous in Uptown New Orleans during Mardi Gras and all the rest of the year, too.