A Walk in the French Quarter, New Orleans, LA
We cross the rails of a stop-sign red trolly with yellow-trimmed windows, and I feel as though I’ve stepped into a movie screen. The sun boils the humid glaze that’s formed across my skin, but I am too delighted to care. To our right, the Mississippi River cradles a massive white ferry, whose delicate beams disguise its powerful might. To our left, our ears catch the blare of a saxophone accompanied by a deep, bluesy voice reverberating through iron-fenced balconies and rainbow stucco townhouses. The sticky-sweet powdered-sugar smell of beignets tempts our nostrils.
We follow the bait up a path through overhanging Spanish moss, draping like abandoned sage curtains over the limbs of knobby, bayou trees, out of place among the urban landscape. French and Spanish architecture transports me to another time as our path opens up and we are on a courtyard of stone, overlooking Jackson Square. We descend into its sanctuary.
The beautiful St. Louis Cathedral towers like a great three-spired throne behind Andrew Jackson upon his black baying warhorse. Palm trees stand at attention on either side of him, and as I approach the statue, he grows—or perhaps I shrink; either way, I feel how very small I am in the never-ending reel of history.
The square is quiet but for the birds and the slight whisper of the trees. My eyes want more, but my skin craves the sweet bite of icy air conditioning. We escape to St. Louis Cathedral’s promise of an ethereal repose.
Jackson Square is a historic park in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960, for its central role in the city's history, and as the site where in 1803 Louisiana was made United States territory pursuant to the Louisiana Purchase. Wikipedia
