Day 3 - The best tour guide ever

Today we went to the Garden District. We had narrowed our tour choices down to two and got extremely lucky, because we ended up with the best tour guide ever. He was extremely knowledgeable of the area and Anne Rice. So that made it extra cool.

We started our tour at the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1



In New Orleans, due to the high water levels, they bury their dead above ground. Not only are they buried above ground, but they don't necessarily stay where they are buried. But I'll get to that later.

Here is a common type of tomb. They use to create these larger tombs that could house multiple bodies. Generally tombs like this represented a group of people with something in common. In this specific case, this tomb is for fire fighters.

This is another group tomb. And this particular tomb is featured in some of the Anne Rice books.

This tomb here is more typical. Basically the person who dies the latest will be on the top. The body that was there will be moved to the next level down. You may be wondering where the body that was in the lower level goes.... Well, they become part of the floor of the tomb. Part of the floor? Yes, part of the floor. The grave yard crew remove the remains from the coffin and put them in the bottom of the tomb. Sounds kind of creepy doesn't it. Again, it gets a bit creepier. They then take the old coffin and just throw it in the dumpster.

Here are a few additional pictures of tombs.

I thought this one was really cool. See how the column is broken in half? That represents that the person buried there died young, their life was cut short. Just like the column was cut short.

Here is another interesting grouping of tombs. These 4 tombs belong to 4 men that were great friends throughout their lives. They even became blood brothers. They were such good friends that they wanted to be buried together.

Now for some houses in the Garden District.

Here is the Anne Rice house, that the Witching Hour was based around.

This home use to belong to Anne Rice, but it now belongs to Nicolas Cage. You know the actor.

This is part of his back yard. Thought it was pretty so took a picture.

Just some gorgeous churches.

The Mississippi at night.

Last, but not least a random statue. I thought this one was a bit funny. Hee Hee!