Celebrate the New Orleans Renaissance.
Since April 20, New Orleans has served as command post and center of attention for efforts to contain BP’s monumental oil spill—exactly the kind of attention New Orleans hoteliers and restaurateurs did not want to attract. With the flow of oil at least temporarily contained, the people of New Orleans heave a collective sigh of relief, turning their attention to another significant occasion.
This week, New Orleans observes the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall. For some residents, the anniversary simply marks another benchmark in their epic struggles to rebuild lives torn to shreds and washed out to sea by savage winds and torrential rains. For most Crescent City locals, however, the anniversary has become cause for major celebration, and they more-than-cordially invite you to join them. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
“I trust in your love just like I do in this town.”
Thirty years ago, Poco celebrated their love of New Orleans in a number one hit song, “The Heart of the Night.” The song has become an informal anthem for New Orleans tourists who happily discover they readily leave their hearts there far more than they ever would in San Francisco. In New Orleans, there’s just more to love.
Dixieland jazz lives and thrives at “Preservation Hall,” a shrine dedicated to nightly foot-stomping celebration of Creole jazz that impossibly combines banjos and tubas. Bouillabaisse and jambalaya entice hungry diners at famous eateries up and down Bourbon Street, where happy revelers carry Pat O’Brien’s legendary “Hurricanes,” a dangerously delicious rum concoction celebrating its own fiftieth anniversary this year. Naturally, the world’s premier designers have restored their French Quarter boutiques, but hundreds of local artisans offer clothing, jewelry, and accessories imprinted with an unmistakably “Big Easy” look and feel. “King Cotton” does, after all, cover lots of Louisiana farmland.
Of course, all the major hotel chains have restored and refurbished their New Orleans landmarks. But before you book a room that would look the same in New Orleans or Newark, consult your favorite travel guide. New Orleans features some of the world’s finest, most charming, most comfortable, and most affordable bed-and-breakfast accommodations. Because you are joining the Big Easy’s revival, you deserve to celebrate in style.
