New Orleans

The cathedral facing the square was rebuilt in the 1850s, yet no US cathedral has been in continuous use on its site for longer. Painters hang their work on the iron fence around the square, turning it into an open-air gallery by day.

At night it closes to cars, and bands in open-fronted bars compete for volume. Walking with a drink is allowed but glass is not, so bars pour it into a plastic cup at the door. Locals head to Frenchmen Street for music instead.

Two or three blocks in the Marigny, just past the French Quarter's eastern edge, are lined with jazz and brass band clubs. Listen at the door and pick one; many ask for a drink instead of a cover charge. The street fills after 10pm.

Running since 1835, it is the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world. The green wooden cars date from the 1920s, so there is no air conditioning and the windows drop by hand. On Mardi Gras parade days service is cut back or halted.

American newcomers built this 19th-century mansion quarter upriver to keep apart from the Creoles of the French Quarter. Live oak roots heave up the pavements, so watch your feet. Most houses are lived in and seen only from the fence.

Opened in 1789, it keeps the dead in above-ground tombs because the water table is too high for burial. After too many visitors scratched wishing X's on voodoo priestess Marie Laveau's tomb, entry since 2015 has been by licensed guided tour only.

Opened in 2000 because the Higgins boats of the Normandy landings were built here, it was later named the national museum by Congress. Its halls fill both sides of the street, a full day's visit. A dog tag card at entry lets you follow one soldier's war.

Since 1961 this small room has played only traditional jazz; behind a few rows of wooden benches, people stand. Sets run about 45 minutes, several a night, with no drinks or food sold. Each set is ticketed apart, and popular ones sell out days ahead.

Larger than New York's Central Park, it shelters southern live oaks that were growing before the city existed, limbs sweeping the ground. The sculpture garden by the art museum is free. A café inside sells beignets like the famous French Quarter stand.

About 30 minutes south of the city lies the wetland unit of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park. Boardwalks cross the cypress swamp, so you see alligators and turtles without a boat. Entry is free; in summer the mosquitoes are fierce, so bring repellent.

The riverside warehouse where the Kern family has built parade floats since 1947. You walk among giant carved and painted foam figures, watch next year's floats taking shape, and leave with a slice of king cake handed out as the tour wraps up.

A Mississippi sternwheeler still driven by a real steam engine. Ahead of each departure someone plays the steam calliope on deck, and you can hear it anywhere along the French Quarter riverfront. Evening sailings carry a jazz band.

A former sugar plantation on River Road, about an hour upriver, run as a museum told through the eyes of the people enslaved there. You walk past testimony from former slaves recorded in the 1930s, and inside the church sit clay-coloured statues of children.

A ferry that crosses from the foot of Canal Street to Algiers Point, a crossing of only minutes. From the levee path at Algiers you see the whole downtown skyline across the water, and the neighbourhood behind keeps its quiet 19th-century wooden houses.

A market on the same stretch of riverbank since 1791, its stalls running under a long open-sided shed. Food and souvenirs fill the front, and towards the east end the flea-market tables of antiques and handmade goods take over.

Built in 1799 as the Spanish town hall, to the left of the cathedral on Jackson Square, it is where the Louisiana Purchase was signed in 1803. Now part of the state museum, it keeps a death mask of Napoleon upstairs.

A brick square inside Louis Armstrong Park. Through the 18th and 19th centuries enslaved people gathered here on Sundays to drum and dance, and those rhythms are counted among the roots of jazz. Drum circles still meet on Sunday afternoons.