In the heat of summer, the alligators are quite active and not the least bit shy about swamp boats. Whether it’s instinct or wishful thinking, they will check out a boat to see if a meal is involved. While not the predators that sharks are commonly portrayed as in the movies, alligators will eat any chance they get. But since they are reptiles and have very low metabolism, they hunt mostly through stealth, gliding through the water with just their nostrils and eyes poking above the surface, or they lie in waiting and see what happens by. They don’t have much energy for a chase, but once they get their jaws on something, it’s a meal.

The swamps of Louisiana are unique in the United States, with or without gators. So the excursions provide many interesting insights into the natural world and some of the folklore of cultures that have lived in the region.

The thriller shed light on the toothy predators and stretched some truths. Hewitt knows because he has first hand experience. He swims with them every week in the Gulf of Mexico Theatre.

“They’re not the blood thirsty monsters people think they are,” he says. “Sharks are tuned into finding their next meal. They don’t waste energy on hunting healthy animals. They find weak creatures.” But when the sand sharks in the Gulf tank swim too close to the divers, they know it’s time to get out of the water.

New Orleans’ Aquarium of the America’s is a premier Aquarium. It celebrated its 11th anniversary in 2001. The Aquarium has come a very long way in a very short time, to the delight of more than 12 million visitors. Current exhibits include everything from rain forest dwellers to rare Southern Sea Otters and a white alligator. And everyone can brush with a shark.

Most people don’t want to come so close to a shark that they can just reach out and touch it. But the shark petting zoo invites visitors to do just that. The two-foot baby nurse sharks are fairly docile and their brownish skin is very coarse. Volunteers are on hand to guide visitors. Eventually the sharks will grow to as long as eleven feet. Some will be released into the wild and others will travel to other aquariums. Up close and personal experiences with larger sharks are reserved for the staff.

Twice a week divers plunge into the Gulf tank, which is filled with sand sharks and two other species of shark. As well as 25 species of fish, including redfish, tarpon and sting rays. The Aquarium feeds the fish three times a week. In the wild, though, sharks may eat only once or twice a month. “They’re very efficient,” Hewitt says. “They conserve energy and prey on the weak.” Thus they haven’t emptied the tank of other species. Though there are no sickly looking fish in the exhibit. And once when a sting ray gave birth to young, the sharks got to several before Aquarium staff could scoop them all from the tank.

“The truth is: living in nature is very hard,” Hewitt says. “There’s a lot of disease and competition for food and territory.” Animals at the Aquarium probably have much longer life expectancies than they would in the wild. That’s particularly so for creatures like the Aquarium’s white alligator. In the wild, it’s extremely rare for white alligators to be born. But without the camouflage of regular alligators it is even harder for them to survive. Birds like Herons prey on alligator young.

Many creatures are far more susceptible to competition from humans. Even shark populations are down considerably as a consequence of commercial fishing, says Hewitt. Tuna populations are also down. This year the Aquarium added sea horses and dragons. These exotic creatures are also being overfished. For the next Aquarium expansion, Hewitt would like to see an exhibit on migratory fish, like blue fin tuna, whale sharks and marlin, before they’re extinct.

The Aquarium houses several creatures whose species are battling extinction. Two otters moved into their New Orleans home this year. Buck and Emma are among the estimated 2,000 Southern Sea Otters known to exist. Both are rescued orphaned pups from off the coast of California. Emma hadn’t adequately mastered hunting for food, and Buck had taken to pursuing and trying to climb into canoes and kayaks. Both were deemed better off in protective environments.

Otters normally spend most of their time grooming their fur and eating. In the chilly waters off Monterrey they stay warm by nuzzling tiny air bubbles into their fur and by constantly eating. Otters eat as much as a third of their own weight every day. Buck and Emma spend their time rolling in ice, eating and diving at the Aquarium.

Scientists hope the young pups will be the first Southern Sea Otters to reproduce in captivity. That’s an area of particular interest at the Audubon Institute, which includes the Aquarium, the Zoo and several other area attractions and institutes. The Audubon Institute Center for Research of Endangered Species has made news in the past few years with its efforts to birth young from frozen embryos implanted in surrogate mothers from other species. Jazz, a baby African wild cat, was born that way at the center in 2000. The institute is creating a frozen zoo of eggs and genetic materials so that as the technologies develop, they’ll have the potential to re-populate endangered or extinct species. The new technology is becoming part of the effort to preserve the natural world.

While aquariums have always entertained, conservation is at the heart of any aquarium’s mission. They inherently educate viewers about creatures people would never stumble upon. While old aquariums tended to present boxes of fish, new aquariums have become more like modern zoos. They try to display creatures in ecosystems as closely approximating their natural habitat as possible. So the Aquarium’s Rain Forest Room is suitably lush and balmy. The Caribbean tank is full of reef fish that share the natural environment.

Maintaining an Aquarium is in many ways more demanding than a zoo. Hewitt and the animal husbandry staff and the engineers are responsible for maintaining each creature’s entire environment, from water temperatures to monitoring the interaction of species sharing ecosystems. Staff are on hand 24 hours a day to manage the nearly million and a half gallons of water in the Aquarium.

In spite of the requirements to maintain an ecosystem, the Aquarium is changing all the time. Locals are often surprised at what’s been added since their last visit, says Hewitt. And the Aquarium also has space for visiting exhibits. The current temporary exhibit focuses on frogs. It’s a fitting exhibit, since the presence of frogs in an ecosystem indicates a healthy marine environment.

These creature features are part of Behind the Scenes tours offered during the summer on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Guides give extra information on exhibits and take the tours into special areas. So while everyone gets to see the Caribbean Reef exhibit from below, the tour takes visitors to the feeding station and catwalk above the reef. The behind the scenes tours wouldn’t be complete without a little dish either. For example, the rainbow trout who share the penguin tank were originally roommates with the Otters, one guide reveals on a tour. But the female otter, Emma, thought they were toys and made a habit of catching them and pushing them into holes and cracks of the rocks in her space.

Patience has been much friendlier. While penguins do mate for life, she has never found a partner. Though the staff suspect she is continually courting them. With visitors she is also friendly, waddling fearlessly at their feet and letting strangers pet her ultra-fine feathers. Like the Aquarium, the Riverfront is continually developing. The whole Riverfront was behind the scenes until fairly recently. The Port of New Orleans had all but sealed off the river with warehouses and wharves until the 1970s. The 1984 Louisiana World Fair got development rolling. While not a financial success, the fair showed the potential of all the unused space along the river.

The Fair was held roughly where the Riverwalk Marketplace is now. The Riverwalk now fills the space between the Convention Center and the bottom of Canal Street. Extending from those blocks was a wasteland of crumbling, empty warehouses. In the ’90s, it changed into an exciting new district of art galleries, lofts, professional offices, high profile restaurants and music clubs. In the last few years, it has coalesced into a museum district as the National D-Day Museum opened and construction has neared completion for the Odgen Museum of Southern Art, due to open in late August. They joined the Contemporary Arts Center and the quirky Confederate Museum.

Besides the Aquarium, several new tenants have come to the riverfront. The Aquarium added an IMAX theater, presenting super-high definition films on a five and a half story screen. This summer they break out the blockbusters with Matrix Reloaded and a film fest of thrill-rides. Every week in July presents a different film at 6pm from Adrenaline Rush to Straight Up: Helicopters In Action to Pulse, an IMAX adaptation of the musical Stomp. The Audubon Institute, which runs the Aquarium and IMAX, is also adding an Insectarium to the French Quarter. The biggest new construction downtown is Harrah’s New Orleans Casino at the base of Canal Street. Among the clinking and flashing lights of the thousands of slots, the décor presents New Orleans in microcosm. A towering imitation live oak tree sits in a center court under a fiberoptic canopy of lights. Elsewhere Mardi Gras artists have created wild sculptures depicting Mardi Gras floats and the pirate world of Jean Lafitte.

Across the river, Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World presents the real thing. Tours of the dens provide a continual behind the scenes experience. Artists work year-round to design, build and paint hundreds of floats. The dens are also home to the most recognizable signature floats from the largest parades. A free shuttle takes visitors to Mardi Gras World from the ferry terminal, also a free ride departing from the dock at the bottom of Canal Street.

Many downtown attractions are quite established. The French Market has been an open air market since the colony was founded. Native Americans traded there with the French settlers. Jackson Brewery, at Jackson Square was founded in the 1890s. Brewing ended in the ’70s and the buildings have been converted into a shopping mall. Harkening back to the days when the riverfront was a port, paddlewheelers cruise the river, but for pleasure excursions only. New Orleans Paddlewheels offers hour-long harbor cruises and evening dinner jazz cruises.

For the Fourth of July, Downtown attractions host Go Fourth on the River. The celebration includes music at Spanish Plaza, at the pavilion near the Aquarium and in the French Market. Then at 9pm, a fireworks show lights up the sky. The Fourth of July has a special significance this year as the entire state celebrates the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase. Though the deal was struck in April, President Thomas Jefferson didn’t announce it to the American people until the Fourth of July. He thought that was a fitting moment to announce the bold step forward for the young nation.

Plantation mansions are some of the most recognizable images of South Louisiana, but most of the people behind them are far from household names. With such prominent addresses along the river and such a bounty of activity and trade, however, the region was full of colorful characters. Bigeasy.com takes at a brief look at who was who in plantation country.

Oakley Plantation
Not a permanent resident, but one of plantation country’s most recognized names is John James Audubon.
The illustrator and naturalist stayed at the Oakley home near St. Francisville for a summer in 1821 and was a frequent visitor to the area after that.
Audubon was hired by James and Lucy Pirrie to tutor their daughter. He spent the summer at their plantation but left following a dispute over money. The area, however, figured heavily in his illustrated guide Birds of America. Of the book’s 435 illustrated birds, roughly twenty percent of the drawings were started in West Feliciana Parish, the area surrounding Oakley where Audubon camped for weeks on end while observing the wildlife. A total of 33 illustrations were done at Oakley itself.
Audubon was a lifelong traveler. He was born in Haiti in 1785 but grew up in France. When he was 18, he moved to a plantation his father owned near Philadelphia. The move kept him out of Napoleon’s army and led to his marriage to Lucy Bakewell, a resident of a neighboring farm. Audubon failed in several businesses before he decided to focus on his hobby of painting. In his travels, he discovered a love of wildlife and it became his art as well. He is well remembered in plantation country and his name is everywhere.
The Oakley home is located on the Audubon State Historic Site (off Hwy. 965 east of St. Francisville). Like many of the plantations on the higher and drier ground east of the Mississippi, cotton was the main crop. Built in 1806, the home is remarkable for its shallow depth and the uncommon use of “jalousies,” to ventilate the home’s galleries. The heavy, angled slats forced breezes to circulate the air in the home but screened out rain and direct sunlight.

Nottoway Plantation
One of the strongest figures along River Road during the Civil War era was Emily Jane Liddell Randolph. She and her husband John were from Woodville, Mississippi. They bought the plantation and in the 1840s built the beautiful asymmetrical wedding cake home, that is now Nottoway Plantation (30970 Hwy. 405, 1-866-527-7884). As the Civil War approached, John Randolph took the plantation’s slaves and went to Texas to build railroads for the Confederacy.
Emily and several of the youngest of her eleven children stayed at Nottoway. She is known for facing down Union gun ships and protecting the home. New Orleans fell very early in the war but plantation country was a place of constant gun battles as pockets of Confederates hid out trying to ambush Union ships. The opposition came to a head at Nottoway as ships prepared to fire on Confederates encamped behind the house. As they prepared to open fire, Emily went up to the front verandah to face them. Miraculously, they didn’t fire. Instead, a still unknown Union officer came ashore and met with Emily. Emily is credited with saving the home since many homes were burned if Confederates were found there or if the homes were found to contain weapons. Besides saving the home and her family, Emily was able to raise 40 acres of sugar cane with the few people left at Nottoway.

Laura Plantation
Of all of plantation country’s residents, the richest details of any one family center around Laura Locul of her namesake Laura Plantation (2247 Hwy. 18, Vacherie). In renovating and researching the plantation, Norman and Sand Marmillion were able to acquire her memoirs, which they published as Memoirs of the Plantation Home by Laura Locul Gore. From Laura’s scrapbooks and the memoirs, completed in 1936, the story details the four generations of women who oversaw Laura plantation. But the diaries also tell the story of a changing world. The old Creole culture of New Orleans was giving way to a new American way of life.
Laura Locul was born into a very traditional Louisiana Creole family. When she was 13, the plantation was named for her.
But as she matured,she yearned to go to New Orleans and live amongst the family’s French-speaking relatives. Her mother also loved New Orleans and Creole sophistication. But Laura yearned to be a modern American woman. She married a Protestant American man from Missouri, far detached from Creole society. Though she spent many years in New Orleans and living in St. Louis away from her family, the family plantation always occupied her mind. Later in her life she recorded her memories of the family and its life in Louisiana.

Evergreen Plantation
Pierre Clidamant Becnel is another figure torn between the old and new world. The Becnel family came to own what is now Evergreen Plantation through a marriage involving the original founding family, the Heidels. Pierre was born in 1803, when the United States bought Louisiana. His parents both died of yellow fever two years later and he was raised by his grandmother and became a very wealthy young man. He married a cousin and the two moved to New Orleans and fell in love with the influx of Americans and their culture. When his grandmother died he returned to the plantation and decided to renovate the home to its current Greek Revival style, uncommon in plantation country then, but very popular in American architecture.
Evergreen has 39 buildings still intact, including the original outbuildings and slave quarters. The grounds are still used to grow sugar cane. The home is open to the public but only through New Orleans Tours (592-0560).

River Road African American Museum
In recent years, one of the most significant additions to the documented history of life in plantation country has been the creation of the River Road African American Museum (225-562-7703). It details the lives of slaves who worked and helped build the plantations. Those generations of contributors have often been left out of history. The museum seeks to redress that. A second museum site is under way in nearby Donaldsonville. The museum is located on the grounds at Tezcuco Plantation (3138 Hwy. 44, Darrow). The home at Tezcuco was recently lost to a fire.

Destrehan Plantation
The oldest documented plantation home in the region is Destrehan Plantation (13034 River Road, Destrehan). It has, however, undergone some notable changes. Original construction of a French West Indies-style home began in 1787. But the original owner Robin deLogny died in 1792, two years after it was completed. The home came into the hands of the d’Estrehan family, who had to add the two flanking buildings to house all of their 14 children. The house was eventually bought in 1840 by Judge Pierre Rost who had it remodeled in the Greek Revival style. The family went to Europe during the Civil War period and the house was turned into a school to teach trades to freed slaves. Following the war, the home was returned to the Rosts who maintained the home into the 20th century.

Oak Alley
One of the most recognizable plantations in the South is Oak Alley (3645 Hwy. 18, Vacherie). While it is uncertain who planted the double row of majestic live oaks, much is known about the plantation builder. Jacques Thelesphore Roman built the home in the late 1830s. His brother André Bienvenue Roman was a two time Louisiana governor. The family was wealthy from holdings in cattle farther west in Cajun country and from indigo and later sugar grown on the plantation. But the family also had ties to the city of New Orleans. Thelesphore’s mother lived in the only French Colonial plantation style home in the French Quarter. Now called Madame John’s Legacy (632 Dumaine Street), it’s a Louisiana State Museum site. But Thelesphore always preferred the more quiet life in plantation country.

San Francisco
San Francisco Plantation (2646 Hwy. 44) is one of the most stunningly restored mansions. The original itself was quite inspiring. Its beauty and mystique were behind Frances Parkinson Keyes novel Steamboat Gothic. The story was about a fictional family that she imagined living at San Francisco. But more than a work of fiction, she coined a term for a particular style and sense of Southern society.
The home was built in 1856 by Edmond Bozonier Marmillion. The house is not typical of the period. It resembled the ornate and top heavy looks of the river’s paddleboats. Inside, the home was remodeled in 1860, adding magnificent details. The current look was painstakingly restored to that period. The decor is highlighted by ceiling frescos.

Plantation homes provide some of the most recognizable images of the South. When cotton was king, there were more millionaires living along the southern Mississippi River than in New York. Spread out along the river from New Orleans to Baton Rouge are some of the most picturesque of plantations.

Houmas House
The most recently refurbished plantation is Houmas House, once home to the largest sugar planter in the South. While once a 300,000-acre plantation, the current property covers 36 acres just outside of Burnside, La., named for one of the plantation’s owners, John Burnside.
New Orleans developer and preservationist Kevin Kelly bought the property and lives there part-time. He’s opened the residence for tours and the grounds for private events. The grounds contain many of the original buildings, including two garconnieres. Traditionally, the small buildings housed the young men of a plantation family. In refurbishing the grounds, Kelly has turned many acres into tended gardens and a large fountain has been added at the back, behind the original separate kitchen building. Some of the massive live oaks around the home are more than 200 years old.
The plantation was created in the late 1770s and the original home, which still stands, was constructed in 1780. It took the name from the Houmas Indians. The three-story, 21-room, Greek Revival, columned plantation home was built in 1840. The yellow color of the home is in the style of the times.
The interior of the house is filled with antiques and interesting artifacts from the home’s past owners and accounts of their lives. An 1848 census map once given to the plantation owner is on display. There are records and photographs of Burnside’s sugar enterprise. There are even photos of Bettie Davis, who stayed at the home while filming Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte. The home also contains several large murals. These are new, and include Kelly’s two Dutch Labradors in one scene, but such paintings were very common in large plantation homes in the 1840s.

Laura Plantation
Some of the richest details of plantation life come from Laura Plantation. Hundreds of pages of diaries from its residents were recently recovered in archives in Paris. Also, Laura Locoul Gore, who was 13 when the plantation was named for her, left behind her recollections in Memories of the Old Plantation Home. Compiled in 1936, her story depicts the cultural change of a family going from its old Creole ways to a more modern American outlook.
Built in 1805, Laura Plantation was presided over by seven generations of a Creole family, mainly named Duparc or Locoul. For four generations, women presided over the plantation and the diaries reflect their lives. The family lived both on the sugar plantation in what is now Vacherie, LA, and in New Orleans.

The grounds produced sugar cane up until 1981. But over the years, 11 of the original buildings, including some of the slave quarters, survived. All are on the National Historic Register. The home verged on destruction in the early 1990s when investors wanted to demolish it to proceed with plans for a bridge across the Mississippi. In 1993, Norman and Sand Marmillion purchased the property and restored it. They also undertook extensive research to discover its past. The tour is considered one of the more enlightening looks at what life was like for one of the area’s transplanted European families as it adjusted to the new world and eventually assimilated to its culture.

The fable Br’er Rabbit was first recorded in the U.S. at Laura Plantation.

Oak Alley
One of the most recognizable plantations in the South is Oak Alley. It is aptly named for the double row of ancient live oaks that line the path from the riverfront to the home’s front doors.
Just who planted the live oaks remains a mystery. They are believed to have been planted prior to 1718. The land along the river was being parceled out to Europeans encouraged to move to the Louisiana colony at the time. Many French and German immigrants settled the area.
The current plantation home was built by Jacques Thelesphore Roman in the 1830s. Roman’s brother twice served as Governor of Louisiana. The family also had ties to New Orleans and, in fact, his mother lived at one of the rarest of buildings in the French Quarter. Now called Madam John’s Legacy, taken from a story by George Washington Cable, the West Indies-style plantation home is right in the middle of the historic district on Dumaine Street. But Roman preferred the quiet life along the river. Roman’s family had been in Louisiana since the 1720s but it wasn’t until the end of the century that they acquired this sugar plantation.

The grounds include a bed and breakfast and a restaurant. The site has also been featured in movies such as Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte, as well as the more recent Primary Colors and Interview With A Vampire.

Myrtles Plantation
Farther away from the river is Myrtles Plantation, located in St. Francisville. The home was built in two parts with the first one completed in 1797 for General David Bradford. He was actually known as the leader of the Whisky Rebellion, when the young American government enforced a whiskey tax. President George Washington put down the rebellion and Bradford fled Pennsylvania. He came to Louisiana where he received a land grant from the Spanish governor.
The plantation home is a long, low frame mansion. It features a long veranda in the front and is surrounded by ancient live oaks, crepe myrtle and ten quiet acres. The style of home was far more typical of 19th century Louisiana plantation homes than the more stately wide columned mansions. The home is luxuriously appointed with period antiques. There is a neighboring restaurant and bed and breakfast.

Myrtles is considered the most haunted plantation. A Reconstruction era murder and other murders are part of its folklore. Different tours of the home feature its history or its intrigue.

1. Check in at the Louisiana Children’s Museum. Steps away from the French Quarter at 420 Julia Street, the Children’s Museum has been an educational playground for more than a decade. There are hands-on exhibits and play centers for different ages from toddlers on up. Hours are 9:30am – 4:30pm Mon.-Sat, and noon – 4:30pm Sun. 504-523-1357.

2. Take a ride on the mighty Mississippi. Float back in time on the Paddlewheeler Creole Queen. As the boat cruises the river, the Captain points out the local sights and history. Cruises stop at the Chalmette Battlefield for a brief tour of that historic site. The Creole Queen shoves off each day at 10:30am and 2pm. For those with less time, the Riverboat Cajun Queen offers one-hour tours at 11:30am, 1pm, 2:30pm and 4pm. The Creole Queen also offers a dinner jazz cruise in the evenings. Enjoy live jazz and a buffet of Creole favorites. 504-524-0814.
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3. Talk to the animals at the Audubon Zoo. Who doesn’t love a day at the zoo? The zoo is home to everything from Louisiana white alligator to a Komodo Dragon from Indonesia. Pink flamingoes recently moved in to the zoo and there are white tigers, elephants, monkeys and many more creatures. The Louisiana Swamp exhibit includes an Acadian settlement, circa 1930, which offers Cajun food, Cajun music and dancing. 504-581-4629.

4. Chat with the gators on a swamp tour. It’s no secret that New Orleans is a city built in the middle of a swamp. You don’t have to go far to find swampland overflowing with turtles, alligators, cypress trees, egrets and more. Jean Lafitte Swamp Tours explore the swamps of the West Bank, just 15 minutes from downtown. Guided boats depart daily at 10am and 2pm. 504-592-0560.
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5. Have a parade at Mardi Gras World. For 50 years Blaine Kern has built some of the grandest floats for Mardi Gras parades. Take the free Algiers Ferry from the bottom of Canal Street to get to Mardi Gras World (a free shuttle meets each ferry). The tour includes a video, a walk through the costume room-with a break to try on costumes and take pictures-and a tour of the city’s biggest float warehouses. Tours run every half-hour from 9:30am-4:30pm daily. 504-361-7821.

6. Make a splash at the Aquarium and IMAX. The Aquarium of the Americas is a top national aquarium and home to everything from California sea otters to sharks and jellyfish. Next door at the Entergy IMAX Theatre, super-high definition films hit the five and half story screen. Many of the features are in 3D. Call for tickets and Aquarium combo tickets. 581-4629.

7. Take a spin on the carousel in City Park. The Hines Carousel Gardens are home to one of the last remaining antique, carved wooden carousels in the country. Ride fierce lions and tigers and fine stallions to the sound of a whimsical calliope. Hours are Wed.-Fri. 10am-2:30pm; Sat. and Sun. 11am – 5:30pm. 483-9356. Close by, Storyland allows youngsters to climb in the mouth of Pinocchio’s whale, fish in the Little Mermaid’s pond and sail aboard Captain Hook’s ship. Hours are Mon. – Fri. 10am – 2:30pm; Sat. and Sun. 10am – 4:30pm. 504-483-9381.

8. Ride the Rides at Jazzland. There are plenty of kids rides as well as the 60 -mile-per-hour Mega Zeph roller coaster at the city’s amusement park. The park features more than 30 rides plus daily Mardi Gras Parades, park characters, shows and more. The Cypress Plunge log flume offers welcome relief from the summer heat. Jazzland is 15 minutes from downtown off I-510. 10am-6pm most days. Later on weekends. 12301 Lake Forest Blvd.

9. Visit the New Orleans Museum of Art’s (NOMA) interactive exhibit, stARTing Point. While most of the exhibits at NOMA will be of interest to grown-ups, stARTing Point will captivate the entire family. StARTing Point is a world of interactive exhibits designed to help people understand the source of artists’ inspiration. Computers with special software teach visitors about texture, shape, color and self-portraits. It’s open 10am-5pm Tues.-Sun. 504-488-2631.

10. Make the scene at the Musee Conti Wax Museum. Who says that history can’t be fun-especially the history of this eccentric city? Stop by the Musee Conti Wax Museum at 917 Conti Street and romp through 300 years of life in the Crescent City. You’ll meet Emperor Napoleon, Louis Armstrong and Voodoo queen Marie Laveau. And no wax museum would be complete without a dungeon of horrors. The Musee is open from 10am-5:30pm Mon.-Sat. and noon-5:30pm Sun. 504-525-2605.

While the connection might puzzle some, there is a tie between the invasion of Normandy and the beaches of Lake Pontchartrain. It is also the basis for historian Stephen Ambrose’s efforts to create the museum here in New Orleans. As President Dwight Eisenhower’s biographer, Ambrose learned about a New Orleanian named Andrew Jackson Higgins. Eisenhower had asked if Ambrose, then at the University of New Orleans, knew Higgins. Ambrose had never met him. Then Eisenhower explained that Higgins had enabled the Allies to win the war.

Higgins was a ship builder, but only after a long series of less successful ventures in his native Nebraska and Mobile, AL. It was an industry he took up after trying to make a living logging timber in the swamps. The swamps were difficult to work until Higgins designed a flat-bottomed boat that could maneuver up on the banks and then off again under their own power. He called them Eureka boats. Higgins used them for logging but also started selling them to other interests, including the Coast Guard, oil companies and smugglers.

As World War II neared, the Marine Corps was looking for a troop landing boat. In sea trials, the Higgins boat outclassed the competition. Production went into high gear at his New Orleans factories. More than 30,000 people worked at his plants, and it was one of the first major local employers to open up to a diverse workforce, including Rosie the Riveter and African Americans. Because he kept so many employed during the tail end of the Depression, even when he didn’t have the money to do so, Higgins was loved and admired throughout the city. Eventually, Higgins’ factories supplied more than 12,000 landing crafts and a total of more than 20,000 boats to the military.

The boats were crucial to the war effort. Landing troops on beaches was essentially a new type of warfare. Previously, invasions focused on harbors because that made it easier for ships to land troops and equipment once they got a foothold. But harbors are easy to defend and that meant heavy casualties. In World War II, the United States started assaulting beaches with the Higgins crafts. They were successful in North Africa, crucial at Normandy and effective in the South Pacific.

Ambrose spent much of his later career writing about the war and interviewing thousands of veterans. As they gave him their artifacts, like medals, patches and helmets, his office filled up. And he got the idea to bring together the war history and the personal accounts of the war. Though it was a long time in the making, the project heated up and fundraising was propelled by movies like Saving Private Ryan and its Hollywood heavyweights, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. Both contributed generously to the project. Focusing on the Higgins boats, the new beach warfare and all of the veterans who landed via the boats, Ambrose found widespread support for the museum. It opened in June of 2000 with the fanfare of visiting heads of state and the largest military parade since the end of the war. It was also one of the largest meetings of World War II veterans, who were honored again in the victory parade.

The state of the art museum tells the story of the war both in overview and with video and audio installations with stories from veterans. Inside the opening Louisiana Pavilion, the museum has vintage military vehicles, including airplanes and the last Higgins boat. In preparation for opening the museum, a crew of military veterans, former Higgins factory workers, historians and volunteers built the boat from the original plans to the original specifications. They even held a test trial on Lake Pontchartrain where the military used to train personnel to steer the boats. Local veterans are also on hand everyday to talk about the boats and their experiences in the war.

The 60th anniversary celebration is slated for June 5-6. Events include a living history encampment in front of the museum, firepower demonstrations, tactical briefings at appropriate times on how the actual Normandy invasion progressed, a reception Saturday night, a sunrise service early Sunday morning, plus all sorts of special exhibits and walk throughs.

The Creole Queen features outer decks with authentically patterned wrought iron trims inviting guests to stroll back in time as they settle into the mood of a bygone era. The interiors are richly appointed with plush Victorian style draperies, soft period lighting, wooden parquet dance floors, and Louisiana Cypress bars accented with brass railing for a warm and welcoming setting.

The Paddlewheeler Creole Queen has three private dining rooms giving her the “largest indoor capacity” on excursion vessels in New Orleans. Private room and full boat charters are available during our regularly scheduled cruises, as well as interim time frame.

The streets of New Orleans are still full of cheap thrills – but of the inexpensive variety. One of the enduring charms of the French Quarter is that there’s always something fun or eccentric happening on the streets. Summer is a perfect time to enjoy some of the city’s inexpensive diversions and some of the more incidental ones as well.

Year-round, the central hub for people watching is Jackson Square. The slate walkways around the square are full of street performers, artists and tarot readers. In front of the St. Louis Cathedral you’ll find a cluster of street musicians. The group near the corner of Chartres and St. Peter streets is one of the few spots in the city dedicated to traditional jazz. While clearly not the best dressed band in the city, the ad hoc group is a regular spot for some of the brass band players and traditional jazz musicians who spend their nights playing in clubs a few blocks over. They “daylight” at the Square.

Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen is a steady presence. At night he is a regular at Preservation Hall and around town with his brass band Tuba Fats and the Chosen Few. He is a veteran of Danny Barker’s Fairview Baptist Church brass band, which spawned a renaissance of brass band music in the early ’70s. Lacen likes playing the Square because they stick to the traditional music that tourists recognize and expect to hear. The Square is now a place where young brass band musicians learn the hymns and dirges that make up the repertoire of old-style brass band music.

For a quieter diversion, Royal Street is one of the Quarter’s more beautiful promenades. Closed to automobiles during the day, the street is lined with many of the city’s most established antique galleries. Some have operated as family businesses for more than a century. Royal Street is also home to many fine art galleries, from the color splashes of George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog to a host of contemporary artists from Russia to Latin America and the works of 18th, 19th and 20th century European painters.

In the center of Royal Street, the Historic New Orleans Collection (533 Royal St., 523-4662) offers a free gallery with features on New Orleans’ history, generally drawn from the collections of Kemper and Leila Williams. The current show, running through June 15th, features the history of the early untamed colony.

The Ursuline Convent is the oldest building in the French Quarter. One of the next oldest is the West Indies plantation-style home now called Madame John’s Legacy. Most of the city’s buildings were destroyed in fires in either 1788 or 1794. Madame John’s was mostly destroyed in 1788 but the brick foundation survived. Throughout the rest of the Quarter, homes were rebuilt in Spanish architectural styles (because the Spanish ruled the colony from 1763-1803). The owners of Madame John’s chose to rebuild from the original plans.

Madame John’s (632 Dumaine St., 568-6968) is now home to dual exhibits from the Louisiana State Museum. One concerns the building itself. Upstairs in the home, the museum features a collection of Southern folk art donated by noted collectors Dr. Kurt Gitter and Alice Rae Yelen. The show is a small collection of the biggest names in Southern, self-taught, outsider art from Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Howard Finster, Bill Traylor and Clementine Hunter to New Orleans’ own Sister Gertrude Morgan. Museum admission is just $3 for adults and $2 for children, seniors and active military.

There are a couple of fun and cheap ways to venture outside of the Quarter. The free ferry at the base of Canal Street shuttles back and forth to the historic area of Algiers Point. While many commute on the ferry, it’s the most quick and affordable way to take a little spin on the Mississippi. A round trip, up on deck or just above the muddy currents of the river, offers a refreshingly breezy tour of the harbor and views of the riverfront from the Aquarium to the cathedral spires.

Not technically neighborhoods, but revered as small cities are New Orleans’ cemeteries. Built above ground, the tombs are architectural treasures, predominantly in Greek and classical revival styles. For families who could not afford lavish tombs, there were the walled vaults in the style of an outdoor mausoleum. Some of the more accessible cemeteries are the St. Louis Cemeteries. The entrance to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 lies just outside the French Quarter and is open to the public. It is home to voodoo queen Marie Laveau’s tomb, which is easily spotted due to the unfortunate vandalism of hucksters telling tourists that leaving an “X” on the tomb is good luck. That’s a gimmick with no relation to voodoo.

To get out of the Quarter and see Uptown, the streetcar is a good option. The St. Charles Avenue line is the oldest surviving line. Built in 1835, it connected the city to the surrounding neighborhoods and the town of Carrollton, which have long since been incorporated into the city. Now the 13-mile line offers a rumbling trip through the Central Business District and arts district, around Lee Circle, past the Garden District and up to Audubon Park and the university communities of Tulane and Loyola. The avenue is lined by lush greenery and the beautiful mansions built by the fortunes of cotton and trade on the river.

Take the streetcar up to Audubon Park and walk to the zoo or riverfront or stay on the streetcar as it follows St. Charles Avenue to the shops and restaurants along Carrollton. The streetcar costs $1.25 (each way) and exact change is required.

New Orleans is also home to one of the nation’s largest urban parks. The 1,500-acre City Park is home to the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Botanical Gardens, Tad Gormley Stadium, a golf course and other attractions. The sculptures of WPA artists and one of the world’s largest collections of majestic live oaks, many several centuries in age, are spread throughout the grounds. Just off the City Park Avenue entrances are several attractions for families. There are paddleboats in the lagoon, an ice cream shop in the nearby Timken Center and then there is Storyland and the mini-amusement center. Tickets for rides and for the antique carousel are a couple of dollars.

For more adult distractions, everyone should venture a stroll down Bourbon Street. When the lights come on in early evening the street starts to bustle with all of its gritty charms. College kids in boas and beads walk next to conventioneers with their tote bags and mix with the musicians and performers from some of the more exotic establishments. Barkers offer both the most blunt and sometimes the most veiled enticements.

Bourbon Street earned its reputation from burlesque houses and the legacy of old jazz musicians who sometimes made a living playing for the strippers. Most Bourbon Street addresses now feature live music and more conventional dancing. But if nothing else, the street’s mystique gives it the feeling that anything could happen. And it’s all free, at least because it would be hard to put a price on it.