BUS TOUR & MUSEUMS (Day 5 - part 2)

We continued on into City Park. It was formerly the Allard Plantation planation and is double the size of New York City's Central Park.

Crossing over the Bayou St. John which served as a trade route. ... Live oaks have a shallow root system. These trees are 500 - 700 years old.

Located within the park is another Cafe du Monde. We were told this was the better one because their beignets use less oil and are denser than the one downtown, which has many more tourists and so they have to pump them out faster.

The Popp Bandstand

(right) Museum of art

We left eh park and headed back in the direction of the river.

Notre Dame Seminary ... The St. Charles streetcar is the oldest of the line.

Originally there were sugar cane and rice plantations here. The area was too wet for tobacco. When the planation moved away, the land was sold off into parcels and turned into neighborhoods with very very large plantation-style homes. Each house was surrounded by a large garden, giving this area the name of the Garden District. This was a display of American wealth as opposed to the Creole wealth found on Esplanade Ave. The area was part of the city of Lafayette in 1833 and annexed by New Orleans in 1852.

Layola University ... Christ Church Cathedral

The Jerusalem Temple was built in 1918 for the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shriners (a Massonic fraternal organization). It's well-known for its Moorish architecture.

Trivoli Circle ... Bemjamin Frankin monument at Lafayette Square

This tall pillar in Trivoli Circle (formerly Lee Circle) used to be crowned with a bronze statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from 1884 until 2017. Several other controversial statues were also removed.

Ironically, Lafayette Square is located in the American section of town named after a Frenchman (Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette), while Jackson Square in the old French section of town is named after an American.

Academy of the Sacred Heart ... The Pontchartrain Hotel

We were dropped back off in the heart of the French Quarter so we spent some time enjoying more of the amazing architecture.

Examples of Creole cottages

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop was most likely built as a house in the 1770s. It is one of the oldest suruving structures in town. According to legend, Jean Lafitte owned a business here in the early 1800s.

It has been a cafe since the mid-1940s and now serves as a bar.

The cast iron cornstalk fence was made in Philadelphia in 1858. It was purchased by Willim Banning in the early 1900s and brought here.

Next stop... the New Orleans Voodoo Museum! In 1972, Charles "Voodoo Charlie" Gandolfo and his younger brother Jerry opened a voodoo museum on Bourbon Street. Several years later is moved here, to get away from the multitudes of tourists. After Charlie died in 2001, Jerry took over running things. Jerry died in 2017 and the museum was left to other family members.

Gerald "Jerry" Gandolfo

Voodoo (meaning Spirit of God) is a monotheistic religion connected to nature, spirits and ancestors. It comes from the Fon people of West Africa (today, the Republic of Benin). They believed in three levels of spirituality:

1) God, who is all powerful but distant
2) Sprits (or vudu) which dwell on earth and interact in all forms of daily life. The vudu are the personifications of the forces of nature and can even inhabit inanimate objects.
3) Deceased ancestors

Since the spirits are most common, the religion as well as the culture has become named after them.

In the early 1700s, the Benin area was under French control for the slave trade. Their two major slave colonies were Haiti and Louisiana. Hence, it's these two areas that are most closely associated with voodoo. Since this original African culture did not write, there is no single universal spelling of the word.

Voodoo arrived in New Orleans in 1719 with the first slaves. Forbidden to practice voodoo by the slave owners, they merged their rituals and Loas (saints) with the Catholic saints. Voodoo was not meant to be evil and the rituals were generally performed for well-being.

Entering the hallway. .... Swamp scene with a voodoo priestess partaking in a ritualistic snake dance meant to invoke deities.

Mask vary from tribe to tribe, allowing them to be used as a source of identification. They were often used in ritual dances.

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