Where to Stay in New Orleans, Louisiana

What is New Orleans known for?

New Orleans is known for its old French core and its dense run of museums. The heritage is deep. From the colonial square around St. Louis Cathedral and The Cabildo to the modern galleries of the National World War II Museum, the city holds centuries of building within a compact grid.

The New Orleans Museum of Art and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art carry the visual arts. Music, food, and the river do the rest.

What are the main landmarks in New Orleans?

The main landmarks of New Orleans center on the old square. St. Louis Cathedral and The Cabildo face it, backed by the Old Ursuline Convent and the Napoleon House a few streets away, so that the whole colonial core reads as a single standing museum of the eighteenth century. The National World War II Museum and the New Orleans Museum of Art hold the modern collections.

St. Patrick's Church rounds out the set.

What is the history of New Orleans?

New Orleans was founded in 1718 by the French on a crescent of the river. The town grew around the square that St. Louis Cathedral and The Cabildo would come to define. Spanish rule left its mark next, and buildings from both eras survive: the Old Ursuline Convent is the oldest of them, with Madame John's Legacy and the Hermann-Grima House close behind.

The colony changed flags more than once. When the territory passed to the young United States, The Cabildo hosted the transfer, and the Louisiana State Museum keeps that record. Wealth from the river built the townhouses that still stand, among them the Beauregard-Keyes House and the 1850 House on the old square.

Faith raised its own landmarks across the growing city, from St. Patrick's Church in the American quarter to St. Augustine Church among the older streets. The writer Lafcadio Hearn lived here and left the Lafcadio Hearn House behind. Through fire, flood, and changing rule, the crescent city held to its river.

Where is New Orleans?

New Orleans sits on a bend of the Mississippi in southern Louisiana. The land is flat and low. Much of the city lies at or below the level of the river, so levees ring the old core around St. Louis Cathedral and hold back the water on every side.

City Park spreads across the lower ground toward the lake, and the crescent of the stream gives the town its shape.

What is the climate of New Orleans?

New Orleans has a humid subtropical climate. Summers are long, hot, and wet, with heavy air drifting off the Gulf and thunderstorms breaking most afternoons over the low delta ground. Mild winters follow the heat.

Hard frost is rare on this stretch of the Louisiana coast, and the growing season runs nearly year round.

How do you get to New Orleans?

New Orleans is reached by air, road, river, and rail. An international airport serves the city, and interstate highways bridge the Mississippi to tie it into the wider network of Louisiana. Rail lines still run to the old station.

River traffic has always landed here, and the crescent bend below St. Louis Cathedral marks the historic port.