From The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, September 2008

Catch New Orleans on a quiet afternoon and the city will be taking a nap: the sun shines on rickety wrought-iron balconies, while the odd busker sets up in a shop doorway.

Catch it at midnight and you’ll see a different side: Bourbon Street’s neon signs flaring, trumpet notes blasting across the sky, and whisky glasses clinking like percussion for the band.

New Orleans loves to party. (The quiet moments in-between are merely the hangover.) Founded on swampland, hemmed in by the Mississippi and Lake Pontchartrain, its precarious position has made living for the moment a fine art.

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Residents need little excuse to push the party button – they throw more than 20 festivals a year, and even in the low season (steamy summertime) you’ll find them sinking pints with oysters at the bar. Nola’s (as in New Orleans, Louisiana) wayward spirit has bred great art, too.

Jazz was born here – along with Louis Armstrong and Wynton Marsalis – while the French Quarter has played muse to Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote. And as a city with one of the most eclectic histories in America – founded by the French, ruled by the Spanish, and then the French again before Napoleon sold Louisiana to the Americans in 1803 – life in New Orleans is a cultural gumbo stew of African, American and European heritage.

Hurricane Katrina pressed the pause button in 2005, but even she couldn’t stop the music. Three years on, you’ll find New Orleans back on track: ancient (by American standards) history shaping the forward-thinking present; and sublime jazz clubs amid the scents of Bourbon Street. As autumn cools the summer heat, now’s the time to party.

OLD NEW ORLEANS

The French Quarter – six blocks by twelve, up against the Mississippi – is the oldest part of town, with rows of 19th-century houses fanning out into districts of dinky cottages. Filled with antiques shops, jewellers, galleries and boutiques, Royal and Chartres Streets make for the best ambles. Pedestrianised Jackson Square touts itself as one of the prettiest in America. Ignore the cartoonists and fortune-tellers alongside St Louis Cathedral, and you might agree.

New Orleans has been famous for its voodoo since the days of mystic Marie Laveau – she’s been the inspiration for everything from musicals to Marvel comics. Get a taster at Voodoo Authentica (00 1 504 522 2111). Priestess Brandi Kelley sells more than 100 types of voodoo dolls and gris-gris bags (for potions).

Spook yourself on a cemetery tour. Early New Orleanais soon worked out that bodies buried in the waterlogged soil had an alarming habit of resurfacing after a downpour. So they built vaults above ground, and today these are prime tourist sights (as well as the backdrop to scenes in Easy Rider and Interview with the Vampire). See the tombs of Marie Laveau and civil rights’ campaigner Homer Plessy. St Louis No 1 is the most interesting, but it’s not the safest of places, so join a tour. Save Our Cemeteries (00 1 504 525 3377) runs visits every Sunday at 10am; your £6 fee goes towards the upkeep of the tombs.

For a Tennessee Williams moment, hop on a streetcar and head up St Charles Avenue to the Garden District. The white clapboard houses are quite a show, from big to downright palatial. St Charles Street and parallel Prytania Street, between First and Fourth, are glorious, with terraces, palm trees and flowers on show.

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