French Quarter
The Spanish quarter everyone calls French, with music in the street all day.
Duration
2 hrs 30 min – 5 hrs
Best time
Late afternoon
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
The Vieux Carré is the French grid of 1718, but almost nothing you see is French: two fires, in 1788 and 1794, destroyed the wooden town, and Spain, which governed then, imposed brick, tiles and wrought-iron balconies. The French Quarter is architecturally Spanish.
Music is continuous and legal in the street: Royal Street in the afternoon for brass, Frenchmen Street in the evening just to the east, and Bourbon Street for what is left. Preservation Hall, a room with no air conditioning and no bar, has played traditional jazz every night since 1961.
Getting there
Canal Street or Riverfront streetcar to the edge of the quarter, then everything is on foot across thirteen blocks.
Rules on site
Drinking in the street is legal from a plastic cup and illegal from glass, and it is fined. The streets north of Rampart leave the patrolled quarter and are crossed at night with that in mind.