Things to do and see in New Orleans

The French Quarter, the Garden District, the D-Day Museum, the New Orleans Convention Center, the Audubon Institute (home to the New Orleans Zoo and the Aquarium of the Americas), and Tulane and Loyola universities are all within two miles of the Avenue Inn Bed and Breakfast. Better yet, Magazine Street, a stretch of pavement famous for its antique shops, specialty boutiques, fine restaurants, and lively night spots, is within walking distance.

The Longue Vue House and Gardens provides an inside-out montage of architecture, decorative art, and immaculately designed landscape. This resplendent showcase features over 2,000 varieties of native and exotic plants in an Art Deco setting shaded by ancient live oaks.

For the entire family, the "to-do" list should certainly include The Louisiana Children's Museum, an educational site that features interactive games and activities. John Brown's New Orleans Sidewalk Astronomy, a French Quarter mainstay, offers peeks into the night sky through a monstrous 12.5-inch Meade Reflector Telescope.

Of course, you can't leave town without a shopping visit to the Riverwalk, a collection of 140 stores and restaurants or to the New Orleans City Park, home to magnificent oak trees, historic buildings, picturesque statues and fountains, and a variety of sports and recreational facilities.

Annual Mardi Gras festivities begin primarily in February and usually climax in early March. The French Quarter Festival, a three-day celebration of food, music, and fun, is held in April, and the Jazz and Heritage Festival runs from late April to early May. The Bucktown Seafood Festival takes place in late October, and New Orleans' historic City Park transforms into a holiday wonderland for the Celebration in the Oaks, which runs from late November all the way through December.

If your vacation plans include a little deep-sea fishing, you'll probably want to play it safe and charter the boat in advance. Likewise, those who want to get in some golf might want to arrange for advance tee times. There are two excellent golf courses in the area. The Lakewood Country Club, less than five miles from downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter, has hosted 26 PGA Tour events. So if you plan to play there, make sure to check whether your vacation time conflicts with the course's schedule. If so, you can book a tee time at the Eastover Country Club, which Golf Digest rates as the best course in New Orleans and one of the top five in the state.

For those seeking cultural enrichment, there are numerous museums and galleries to visit. Among the most frequented are the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum, the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans, the D-Day Museum, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Gallery of New Orleans, the Musee Conti Wax Museum, and the Historic New Orleans Collection. The city's most prominent heritage attraction, the Louisiana State Museum, is an assemblage of eight landmark French Quarter buildings that house extensive permanent collections of artifacts and influential art.

If you enjoy touring historic homesteads, the Hermann Grima-Gallier House, built in 1831, stands as perhaps the most significant of the French Quarter residences. But there are plenty of open-to-the-public 19th-century plantations within driving distance. Some of the more popular include Destrehan Plantation, La Branche Plantation, Oak Alley Plantation, Nottaway Plantation, Laura Plantation, and the Madewood Plantation House.