I've never taken a horse-drawn carriage ride from one of the buggies in Central Park, even though I lived in New York City for 14 years.
But I'll admit it's a nice way to explore a place, whether it's en caleche in Morocco or in a more yee-haw fashion in the California desert.
So when I saw carriages gliding along the snow-melted streets of New Orleans last weekend, I was intrigued. And then I found out they were pulled not by horses, but by mules (which can withstand the heat and humidity better)—and I knew I had to take a ride.
On Sunday night before dinner, I went down to Jackson Square to climb aboard. Since I wasn't with a group and didn't want a private tour, I would have to wait until the carriage filled up with enough other passengers to make it worth the driver's while. Unfortunately, after an hour, there still were no other takers—and I had to move on.
Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity altogether, three of us headed over to the pickup spot on Decatur Street at the beginning of the shift on Monday morning, in hopes we could hop on with enough time to spare before I had to check out of my hotel. And then we saw the mule we knew we had to have pull our carriage: Lou, still festooned with her Christmas antlers.
There are a couple of different carriage companies in New Orleans keeping this tradition alive, but we chose the family-owned Royal Carriage Co. (established in 1941) and its driver Sara(h?), who gave us a fun and informative tour of the French Quarter, all packed into just 30 minutes.
We started off heading west, towards the monument of the French-Canadian founder of New Orleans, Jean Baptiste LeMoyne de Bienville...
...and a ghost sign for ginger mint juleps.
We even sauntered down the former Calle de Bienville (now Bienville Street), a relic from when NOLA was a colony of Spain.
Galloping at a slow pace, stopping for all the construction and street closures that created a traffic nightmare in advance of the Super Bowl coming to town in just a couple of weeks...
...we got to pause and admire the stunning neon sign for the parking garage of the Hotel Monteleone parking garage (where I would return later for lunch at the Carousel Bar.)
We then double-backed down Decatur, where wrought-iron-railed balconies of hotels like the French Market Inn overlook the Mississippi River...
...and over to Royal Street, where the Louisiana Supreme Court building looms high and mighty...
...and then to St. Peter, revisiting the tried-and-true home of the hurricane cocktail, Pat O'Brien's, where I'd sipped the cherry-red concoction on Friday night.
It's just the beginning of carnival season, but most of the homes and businesses are already ready to celebrate Mardi Gras—ornamenting their buildings with king cakes, jesters, and purple, yellow, and green bunting.
Heading into the residential section of the French Quarter, we passed a couple of the historic guest houses that are operated as hotels, like the Inn on St. Peter...
...and the Inn on St. Ann, which populates the block where Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau once lived.
Rounding out our tour-by-mule was a glimpse of the famous 19th-century cornstalk fence on Royal Street, which surrounds The Cornstalk Hotel in cast iron painted in black and gold. (There's another one like it here in SoCal, at the Banning Museum in Wilmington.)
And just like that, with the rump of our mule still in our sights, we rounded back to Decatur Street, passing by Cafe Du Monde (where I'd cheated on my gluten-free diet to have beignets and café au lait for breakfast on Saturday), and returned to our starting point at Jackson Square.
Royal Carriage Co. is the oldest stable and carriage company in New Orleans—and it keeps its mules at the oldest stables in New Orleans in the city's oldest neighborhood, Marigny. It's just outside the French Quarter, making it just a mile to a mile-and-a-half walk to work for the mules.
If I ever go back to NOLA, I'd like to meet the mules—which you can do on a walking tour that Royal Carriage Co. debuted in 2024.
Related Posts:
No comments:
Post a Comment