French Quarter and Food

Bayou Segnette State Park is located on the West Bank of the Mississippi River, so going to New Orleans requires crossing the river.  There are two bridges, but there is also a ferry service.  We've been across both bridges, so yesterday we took the ferry, which is free.  Parking the car cost $5.00 for the day.  The ferry runs every 30 minutes from Algiers Point on the Westbank to Canal Street in the city.  Our mission for the day was to see the French Quarter, eat Beignets, and have a Muffaletta for lunch.

This is a view of the French Quarter from the ferry landing:

I confess we cheated on the Beignets, Cafe DuMonde is always packed with long lines, and were really hungry by this time, so we stopped at another corner joint for our treats:

From Decatur Street looking up one of the side streets, this is a good example of the architecture in the French Quarter:

And another beautiful building:

More street view

A few blocks more along Decatur, we came to the Central Grocery, where the "original" Muffaletta is sold:

With long lines typical here, the clerks and food preparers have a good system going.  The sandwiches are made so quickly the line moves fairly fast.  There is an area in the back of the store with stools and benches where you can eat.  We didn't see anyone shopping for groceries, seems most people just come in for the sandwich.

Here's a half sandwich.  I managed to eat half of this.  What's in it and why is it so special? I looked it up on Roadfood.com, and this is what they have to say:

"Central Grocery is home of the muffuletta, one of New Orleans' great sandwiches. A circular loaf of soft Italian bread is sliced horizontally and piled with salami, ham, and provolone, which are in turn topped with a wickedly spicy melange of chopped green and black olives fragrant with anchovies and garlic."

Works for me, it was delicious!

Along Jackson Square, the day was warming up and more people were out and about:

We wondered what Vampires might find in this boutique?

We spent another hour or so wandering and shopping in the Quarter. Rosalie wanted us to visit her shop, and we'd pre-arranged for her to pick us up and take us to the warehouse where her shop is located:

The shop is the first one at the front of the warehouse where she has some light coming in for her plants, plus she'll get more traffic coming by:

She's packing up a gift I purchased:

We needed to get back to the dogs, so after our quick visit to the French Quarter and Rosalie's shop, she drove us back down to the ferry and we were able to get home and spend a couple of hours taking a break.  I got Mr. BoJangles and Jasmine out for our walk, they had their dinner; and we drove back to the city for a dinner at Elizabeth's with Rosalie and her brother, Rick and sister-in-law Viv.  We had yet another great meal and wonderful company.

Our visit to New Orleans is coming to an end for this time, and we are fixin' to head on down the road today.  We'll take two more days to get to Rockport.  Tonight's destination is Beaumont.