Day 2 New Orleans June 2014

This morning I went on the Garden District tour where my group saw the homes of Sondra Bullock, John Goodman, former homes of Anne Rice and Nicholas Cage, who already purchased his burial plot in NOLA and a large pyramid-shaped grave at St Louis Cemetery no. 1.  One of my tour guides the day before joked that the grave is the only real estate Cage still owns in New Orleans. Ouch!

My next excursion was to Mardi Gras World where they build and design a large number of the floats in the multiple Mardi Gras parades. Apparently there are several groups or krewes “crews” as they call them here that put on parades and parties, such as Rex the King, Zulu and Orpheus. It was interesting to learn so much about what is behind one of the biggest parties in the world.

After a quick dip in the hotel pool I headed to the Haunted History Tour in the French Quarter.  The tour once again stopped at Lafitte’s Black Smith shop, one of the oldest bars in America for drinks, they like to keep the tourists liquered up. Get a “Hurricane” if you stop by there.

The ghost stories were interesting but nothing exceptional, until we got to the LaLaurie Mansion at 1140 Royal Street. I knew of the horror that occurred there since I had watched Coven on FX this past year where Kathy Bates did a great job, playing the evil Delphine LaLaurie who tortured her slaves in the attic of the mansion while sneaking out of her famous society dinner parties.

I thought the show over exaggerated for gruesome effect and ratings until our tour guide told us the true story of Madame LaLaurie which was in some cases more ghastly than what the show even portrayed. The creepiest part is that her and her husband Dr. Leonard Louis Nicholas LaLaurie escaped and were never found! Many others have tried to own the property and left claiming it was haunted by the poor tortured souls who perished there. Even Nicholas Cage owned the house for a time but lost it to foreclosure in 2009. Many say that many of the owners had fallen into great misfortunes, how ironic that Cage went bankrupt while owning it.

The tour ended in the back of St. Louis Cathedral at Jackson Square. We were all a bit startled and amused by the huge shadow of Jesus bigger than King Kong reflecting on the building from the small statue in the courtyard.  I headed back down Pirates Alley which is also haunted and ended up with a weird photo probably of a ghost pirate that I cannot explain on my camera. I think I will tell people it’s Nicholas Cage, since so far he has been mentioned in every tour I have been on.