Cafe Maspero sits inside a three-story stucco building with a prominent iron balcony, positioned on the corner of Chartres and Saint Louis streets. This structure dates back to the late eighteenth century, built following the great fire of…
Pirates and Smugglers Quarter
We walk the backstreets of the French Quarter to trace the shadowy legacy of Jean Lafitte and the privateers who ran early New Orleans' rogue economy. From colonial-era blacksmith shops to Spanish taverns, you will see where these legendary smugglers lived, plotted, and traded.
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1. Cafe Maspero
2. The Cabildo Museum
The Cabildo is a three-story Spanish colonial building topped with a distinct flat roof and a series of arched openings along its front facade. It served as the seat of government for New Orleans during the Spanish colonial period. In…
3. Pirates Alley
Pirates Alley is a narrow stone passage running along the side of the Saint Louis Cathedral. Local legend insists that Jean Lafitte and his crew plotted their smuggling routes in the dim light of these buildings, though historians suggest…
4. Napoleon House
The Napoleon House carries a heavy, weathered yellow stucco facade that distinguishes it from the surrounding brick and ironwork. Nicholas Girod, a wealthy merchant and one-time mayor of New Orleans, built this home at the turn of the…
5. Old Absinthe House
The copper fountain sitting on the bar is the heart of the Old Absinthe House. It arrived from Paris in the eighteen seventies, designed to drip ice-cold water over sugar cubes into glasses of absinthe. Jean Cayard, who managed the bar…
6. Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar
The walls of Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop are built from soft, handmade bricks layered with oyster shells and mud. This single-story cottage sits low to the ground on Bourbon Street, its exterior dark and weathered by centuries of rain. Jean…