54 METRO Thursday, March 23, 2017

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New direct flights have put exotic New Orleans within reach, says Richard Mellor

The Big Easy just got easier

Live music, drag queens, balconied colonial buildings and voodoo practitioners are just some of the reasons to visit New

Orleans, aka the Big easy.You will find most of the above in

the Louisiana city’s soulful French Quarter, which is reckoned to be the birthplace of jazz. Tiny Preservation Hall (preservationhall.com) still hosts nightly concerts, while livelier all-night joints on Bourbon and Frenchmen Streets have most other things covered. Try Krazy Korner (krazykorner.com) for R&B or The Three Muses (3musesnola.com) for Americana.

Frequenting the steamy southern American city is about to get much easier for UK travellers as of next Monday, when British Airways’ new service from Heathrow will become europe’s only direct link to New Orleans, departing four times a week.

The city, which was established by French colonisers in 1718 before later becoming a focal point for the Civil Rights Movement, is best known for February’s annual Mardi Gras festival. Those same French founders bequeathed this world-famous party, which sees ebullient parades and hedonistic after-parties throng across the city, and strange fruits everywhere

The inaugural Taste Of The Chilterns food festival will take place from this Saturday until April 2. Promoting the fine fare and scenery of an area once known as the ‘larder of London’, it sees themed events and farmer’s markets take place from Beaconsfield to Boxmoor. The standouts include tours of Chiltern Brewery, chocolate-tasting in Chesham, Iron Age-style culinary challenges for families at Wycombe Museum, watermill demos and gentle Chiltern hills walks, interspersed with refuelling stops.

Many events free, visitchilterns.co.uk/food-and-drink/foodfestival

Norway’s New cable car iN Numbers

Think you can’t afford the Maldives? Think again. Western & Oriental has seven nights for the price of five plus 30 per cent early-booking discounts at the four-star Coco Palm Dhuni kolhu resort throughout summer. You’ll stay waterside in a thatched ocean-front villa, and enjoy a private terrace and king-size bed. The available activities are mostly water-focused: windsurfing, sailing, snorkelling and, of course, scuba diving, with manta rays present year-round.

Save up to £685 per person on a seven-night stay, breakfast and dinner, including return flights from

Heathrow and private transfers. Valid for travel between May 7 and October 31 if booked a minimum 45 days ahead

of travel. From £1,525 per person, westernoriental.com

you look. it’s an incredible time to visit.

You could use this handy new flight route for a cocktail pilgrimage any time of the year, though. Some reckon mixology was invented in ‘NOLA’ (New Orleans, Louisiana), and that’s certainly true of the city’s own Hurricane (dark rum, passion-fruit syrup and lemon or lime), for which

Pat O’Brien’s Bar (patobriens.com) was responsible.

Gourmands visit all year, and in increasing numbers. Not just for the po’boy baguettes or beignets (fried sweet dough balls) but because New Orleans’ exotic pool of immigrants –everyone from venezuelans to vietnamese – are opening thrilling fusion venues.

emily Smith blogs about the best

Championing the Chilterns

M a l d i v i a n M ag i c

1,011mThe altitude of a

restaurant and hiking trails served by norway’s

new Loen Skylift (hovenloen.no) when it

opens on May 20

5 The number of minutes

the thrilling journey takes, ranking among Earth’s sheerest cable-car rides. 21

0°

The field of view on offer from Mount haven,

all of it striking norwegian fjords scenery: lakes, glaciers, forested peaks and winding waterways.

£1,445Cost, with flights, of

seven-night, self-drive, tailor-made trips with Magnetic north Travel,

which visits Loen. magneticnorthtravel.com

For a great price and expert advice.

Thursday, March 23, 2017 METRO 55

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Street cred: The colour and atmosphere of New Orleans’ historic French Quarterpic: GETTY/NATiONAL GEOGRApHic

The Big Easy just got easier For… rich FriendsQatar Airways has revealed a first-of-its-kind ‘party of four’ seat configuration for friends or families travelling together that will remodel business-class seats into a face-to-face private room. The ‘QSuite’ has privacy panels and TV. Available this summer.

For… hawaii#BoycottHawaii trended on Twitter after a Hawaiian federal judge blocked Donald Trump’s revised travel ban. Some Americans claimed to have cancelled holidays. Hawaii’s senior US senator Brian Schatz called it ‘the dumbest thing on the internet’.

GooD week

BaD week

for GoNOLA (gonola.com). When asked to nominate a current fave, she opts for a laidback Latin and Caribbean tapas joint in the genteel Garden District, which is accessible by streetcar.

‘At romantic Baru Bistro (barutapas.com), chef-owner Edgar translates his Colombian heritage into seasonal food,’ she tips. ‘I recommend the ostras fritas, an

homage to our fried seafood obsession. Gulf of Mexico oysters are battered in cornmeal, fried and topped with cilantro aioli.’

Those oysters have arrived via the Mississippi Delta, whose scenery is another reason to book sharpish. Swamp tours promise alligator sightings amid mossy waterways.

Finally, where to stay? The Ace Hotel

opened amid a former furniture store last summer and offers cool, spacious rooms with Smeg fridges. Its rooftop bar sells pretzel dogs around a tree-lined pool: perfect for those hot southern nights.

Return flights from Heathrow, £800, britishairways.com.

Doubles from £103 at the Ace Hotel, acehotel.com/neworleans

So beginS The House of The Rising Sun, a much-covered ballad describing, perhaps, a brothel, jailhouse or hospital where the singer’s ‘race is almost run’. but where was this injurious house? no one’s quite sure. Among the candidates is 826–830 St Louis Street, where one Ms LeSoleil Levant (which translates as ‘The Rising Sun’) supposedly acted as a ‘madam’ from 1862-74.

T h e re i s a h ou s e i n n e w o rl e a n s …

’Gator community: cocktails are a speciality and even the local swamp creatures are pretty laid-back

For… Poo loversIn Italy’s capital, the Bioparco di Roma zoo’s new exhibition details the history of excrement, including ominous-sounding interactive sections and ‘realistic models’ (£2, until June 30, bioparco.it). ‘Poo is life,’ said president Federico Coccia.

For… Jd wethersPoon’s new hotelSinger Frank Turner and wrestler Mark Andrews are among 7,000 names on a petition against the pub giant’s planned first Cardiff hotel. They see a threat to Womanby Street’s legendary live-music scene.