USA Guide
Louisiana
The Garden District
Pride of uptown New Orleans, the Garden District drapes itself seductively across a thirteen-block area bounded by St Charles Avenue, Magazine Street, Louisiana Avenue and Jackson Avenue. Two miles upriver from the French Quarter, it was developed as a residential neighbourhood in the 1840s by an energetic breed of Anglo-Americans who wished to display their accumulating cotton and trade wealth by building sumptuous mansions in huge gardens. Today, shaded by jungles of subtropical foliage, the glorious houses – some of them spick-and-span showpieces, others in ruins – evoke a nostalgic vision of the Deep South in a profusion of porches, columns, and balconies. It's a ravishing spectacle, if somewhat Gothic; while it's a pleasure simply to wander around, you can pick up more detail about the individual houses on any number of official or self-guided tours.
The historic St Charles streetcar is the nicest way to get to the Garden District and uptown, affording front-row views of "the Avenue" as St Charles is locally known. Just before the streetcar takes a sharp turn at the riverbend, it stops at peaceful Audubon Park, a lovely space shaded by Spanish-moss-swathed trees and looped by cycling and jogging paths. Its top attraction, Audubon Zoo, a ten-minute walk from the park's St Charles entrance (Tues– Sun 10am–5pm; $12.50; zoo and aquarium, $25.50), boasts, among other habitats, a beautifully re-created Louisiana swamp, complete with Cajun houseboats, wallowing alligators (including the milky white, blue-eyed "Two-Spot"), and knobbly cypress knees poking out of the emerald-green water.
Opening time: Daily
Price: Free