New Orleans

Gracious old mansions and restored plantations from the pre-Civil War era add something special to New Orleans and its surrounding area. The slave era birthed many urban legends, and the contrast between gracious living and the secret rituals of the slaves created an interesting social mixture. Voodoo certainly affected the higher social classes in that particularly ladies of old-world wealth were not amiss to consulting voodoo practitioners (see the information on Marie Laveau, the self-styled Voodoo Queen), and in no other city has such a mingling imparted such an air of the hidden and unknown, as well as a quaint air of old-world elegance. Perhaps in no other part of the world is the primitive and the gracious so marvellously merged as in the Crescent City.

New Orleans is the birthplace of famous people including Anne Rice and Louis Armstrong. How fitting, too – for Anne Rice is famous for having taken many elements from New Orleans culture and society to transform them into a backdrop for supernatural beings in her famous novels (including the Vampire Chronicles), and Louis Armstrong is perhaps the most famous jazz musician of all time.

Definitely, it's one of those cities in which the delighted visitor wouldn’t mind getting lost for some time! There is entertainment, atmosphere and mystery for everyone, and… well, as New Orleaners say: “Laissez les bon temps rouler”.