City Park (New Orleans, USA)

Once part of the Louis Allard plantation, City Park has been here a long time and has seen it all — including that favorite pastime among 18th-century New Orleans gentry: dueling. At the entrance, you’ll see a statue of General P. G. T. Beauregard, whose order to fire on Fort Sumter opened the Civil War and who New Orleanians fondly refer to as “the Great Creole.” The extensive, once-beautifully landscaped grounds were, unlike Audubon Park, Katrina-ized, enduring serious flooding. Given what it went through (devastating photos can be viewed at their website), it looks pretty good, and is a charming place for a walk and bird-watching. It holds botanical gardens and a conservatory, four golf courses, picnic areas, lagoons for boating and fishing, tennis courts, a bandstand (which has resumed summertime concerts; check the website for scheduled events), two miniature trains, and Children’s Storyland, an amusement area, including fairy-tale figures upon which one can climb and carouse, and an antique carousel. At Christmastime, the mighty oaks (too many of which fell during the storm, though a large number are standing tough), already dripping with Spanish moss, are strung with lights — quite a magical sight — and during Halloween there is a fabulous haunted house. You’ll also find the New Orleans Museum of Art at Collins Diboll Circle, on Lelong Avenue, in a building that is itself a work of art. Also in City Park are the New Orleans Botanical Gardens, which are pretty much like any good version of same, though given the heartache of 3 feet of flooding, which destroyed most of their collection, you have to admire the efforts needed to restore them after the storm. More significantly, it’s here you’ll find tucked away one of the oddest and most charming attractions in this odd and charming city, the Train Garden. Imagine a massive train set, the kind every 9-year-old kid (or kid at heart) would kill for. Now imagine that it’s located in Dr. Seuss’s basement, if Dr. Seuss was obsessed with both New Orleans and organic materials. Along 1,300 feet of track are replicas of 1890s streetcars and ornately detailed, slightly off-perspective, bizarrely beautiful representations of actual New Orleans neighborhoods and landmarks (the miniature buildings are based on very specific addresses) — all made from organic plant material! In a town of must-see attractions, this is just one more. The Train Garden is open during normal Botanical Garden hours (year-round Tues-Sun 10am-4:30pm), but the trains only run on Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 2pm, weather permitting. Admission to the gardens is $5 adults, $2 children 5 to 12, and free for children 4 and under. The gardens are located in the Pavilions of Two Sisters on Victory Avenue in the park. Storyland admission is $3. Carousel Gardens is $3, with additional prices varying on the rides; there is a $12 “bracelet” which allows you unlimited rides.