After spending our first night in New Orleans in the French Quarter, we returned our rental car at the airport and took a cab over to Magazine Street. Our Saturday was spent largely on foot, covering over 4 miles as we headed back toward the hotel.

With my soft spot for stationery, our first stop was Scriptura. In an age of electronic communication, paper goods can seem like such a old fashioned luxury! For those of you on Twitter, you can follow me here and enjoy this pad of paper tweets from the shop.

Nearby, we found Hazelnut, a home furnishings shop I discovered inside Food + Wine Magazine.

Mad Men fans take note:
Hazelnut is owned by the Bryan Batt (art director, Sal Romano). A true son of New Orleans, I was amazed to see him in the shop, meticulously dressed and looking every bit a star of the screen! We hung back while he wrapped one of our purchases, a glass skull & crossbone decanter that we gingerly hand-carried on the flight back to Connecticut. We also got the tiger, stitched in Tibet (below).

I wanted to check out the clever designs of Dirty Coast Press and on our way, we passed this beautiful owl (and visiting conservation group) outside Whole Foods.

Boo Dat: Game day and Halloween are about to converge.

One of my biggest regrets for this trip? Our lunch on Magazine. Casamento’scame highly recommended by numerous friends and we walked right by it… The shopfront AND the ridiculously long line to dine inside. I know, a line is usually a good sign that the food is worth the wait. Except hunger managed to override my compulsive planning. We settled on a divey little spot a few doors down, refueling with gumbo, muffaletta and Abita beer (+ brown paper bag).

After lunch we kept walking and walking on Magazine. Past endless shops filled with beautiful home furnishings, restaurants & bars and locals out-and-about for brunch or on the hunt for a last minute Halloween costume. In the end, we walked all the way to the Hilton, rewarding ourselves with Drago’s famous charbroiled oysters. We never intended to walk that far (a cab would have been welcome), but I did enjoy experiencing the different neighborhoods on foot.

Besides Magazine Street, we were also advised to check out the beautiful homes on St. Charles Ave.

Bound for Sunday brunch at Patois, we boarded the St. Charles streetcar (more about that meal here).

I was impressed with the City’s enthusiasm for Halloween. Home decorations were so much more unique and creatively displayed than I’ve ever seen up North. I have more photos, but I’ll save those for next October.

Not be forgotten: the city’s beloved football team, The Saints.

On the way back from brunch, Lisa stopped to show us a spot she once called home.
After viewing so many stately homes Uptown and in the Garden District, I couldn’t help wishing for a glimpse inside.

I’ll never get used walking the streets with a drink in my hand, but in my next post we’ll cover some of our discoveries from the New Orleans cocktail scene.