This post is going to go live on Monday while I will be somewhere in the air flying Southwest Airline back to San Francisco Bay Area. My recent trip to New Orleans had filled my brain cells with lots of great traveling experience. It is definitely a great city to visit with its rich history. French Quarter is an amazing place to hang out. It has a great variety of different tours. To name a few: steam boat ride along the Mississippi River, Bus Tours, Vampire Tours, Swamp Tours, Carriage Ride and many others. The city is intermixed with French, Spanish and American roots. You can see it in architecture of buildings – which are absolutely beautiful and something that you will only be able to see in New Orleans.
During a boat tour along the Mississippi river I found out that Domino Sugar Refinery is producing six millions pounds of sugar a day. The Port of New Orleans is at the center of the world’s busiest port complex – Louisiana’s Lower Mississippi River. Its proximity to the American Midwest via a 14,500-mile inland waterway system, six Class One railroads and the interstate highway system makes New Orleans the port of choice for the movement of cargoes such as steel, rubber, coffee, containers and manufactured goods.
I am not going to bore you any longer with a history and facts. The purpose of this blog post is to describe my experience about health consciousness of this historic town. The number one thing that was really unpleasant that restaurants are allowing smocking inside. It is really unpleasant experience for someone who does not smoke and really a huge turn off for someone who travels with kids, which was in our case. Many Southerners are chain smokers. People are smoking everywhere here, and smoking a lot. Many individuals are overweight. I guess it has to do with too much heat, humidity and unbalanced diet. People just don’t have a chance to get out for a walk during spring and summer time as it is getting really hot in here. When we ate out the menu choices from different restaurants were not very healthy. With few substitutions we were able to manage to get a semi healthy meal. Very famous beignets from Café du Monde were a huge disappointment. After eating one I felt like my organs were shutting down one by one. It is just deep fried flower and covered with a ton of powdered sugar. The place is packed 24 hours a day and is one of the busiest tourist attractions. I guess it is one of the few things a visitor must experience, which I did.
Dinner at Irene’s Cuisine was absolutely fabulous and healthy but was discovered by speaking to a local resident. If you are in French Quarter of NOLA I highly recommend it to you, comes with a price and long wait. That was the lightest and healthiest food I have eaten in the past five days being here. Breakfast at Bistreaux of Maison Dupuy Hotel was another healthy alternative and excellent service.
Overall my family and myself have enjoyed the stay and everything this beautiful city has to offer. I personally think it should be on every ones bucket list. Hopefully you have enjoyed this semi negative review about my trip to NOLA.