Can't get to Paris? Come to New Orleans instead
- Aimee Boudreaux MacIver
- Apr 20
- 5 min read
As a little girl, I saw a photo in my Grandpa's coffee table book of an ancient marble sculpture that captured my heart. When I later walked into my first high school art class, I saw her again as a poster on the teacher’s desk. I learned that the sculpture had a name: Nike of Samothrace, sometimes called the Winged Victory, and that she lived in the Louvre in Paris. A dream to go there and see her swelled in my young heart.
Of course, traveling requires resources and time. I didn’t make my first visit to Paris until late college after carefully saving money and class credits for a semester abroad. (Spoiler: the Louvre was closed on strike that first trip. Merci beaucoup for breaking my heart.)
Sometimes you just can’t get there. Passports expire, budgets serve more urgent needs, or family schedules don't cooperate. But when you go differently, you can discover rich spirit and beauty closer than you may think. So here’s my pitch: if you can’t get to Paris, come to New Orleans.
Founded in 1718 by the French, New Orleans bears unmistakable French DNA, but New Orleans isn't Paris. She has her own unique, unrepeatable heart. New Orleans and Paris are sisters, not twins, who share a similar joie de vivre and some surprising connections that many miss.
Architecture, street names, and city plan
In the French Quarter and other old parts of New Orleans, look for the street signs. You’ll find yourself walking along Rue Chartres, Burgundy, Toulouse, Dauphine, Orleans, Dumaine, and, yes, Bourbon (named for the duke, not the whiskey). You’ll pass centuries-old Creole cottages and elegant apartments modeled after Parisian rowhouses. The French colonists planned the original city in a tidy grid around a central church, just like many of the places in Paris. Our famed cemeteries also reflect the French custom of burial above ground.
Bistros, brasseries, and creperies
New Orleans and Paris share an abundance of small neighborhood cafes serving extraordinary food with good wine and absolutely no rushing. As my grandmother used to say, “Here we don’t eat to live. We live to eat.” Like Paris, New Orleans eats slowly, intentionally, passionately. You’ll find many distinctly French flavors here. Some of my favorites: Cafe Degas (Mid-City), Tartine (Uptown), The Delachaise, La Petite Grocery, and Lilette (Garden District), Izzat, Mamou, and The Five (French Quarter). If you’re looking for something sweet, try crepes at La Crepe Nanou (Uptown) or beignets anywhere (we love Cafe Beignet on Royal Street and Cafe du Monde in City Park).
Flaneur culture
New Orleans’ historic neighborhoods, narrow alleys, tiny cafes, hidden music venues, and crooked cobblestones beg for long strolls to nowhere in particular. Slow down. Pop in somewhere cozy for delicious bites and sips or warm music. Like Paris, New Orleans invites you to grab onto the gift of this embodied life with full joy.
People watching
Wedding second line parades that close the street. Leathery old men wailing on saxophones by the grocery store. Delightfully bizarre costumes and wigs. These sights mark an average weekend in New Orleans. Paris invented the art of sipping something delicious on a cafe terrace while watching the world go by. But if you love people watching, New Orleans serves up enough entertaining characters for several lifetimes.
The Eiffel Tower
Did you know that you can visit the Eiffel Tower in New Orleans? In the 1980s, the Eiffel Tower’s original top-floor restaurant had become too heavy to sustain. It was dismantled, but not discarded. A New Orleans entrepreneur had the 11,000 iron pieces shipped by barge and reconstructed on St Charles Avenue as the Nieux, a local event center.
A victory arch
Like Paris, New Orleans also features a triumphal arch. The Bywater neighborhood houses a WWI victory monument modeled after the Arc de Triomphe. Our arch is one of the country’s only World War I monuments that honors both Black and white soldiers. It's smaller, obviously, but has zero lines and there’s nobody trying to sell you a cheap plastic miniature.
Pilgrimage potential
Paris and New Orleans remain wildly underrated as sacred destinations. Catholic faith saturates both cities, shaping everything from their architecture to local holidays to cuisine. St Louis Cathedral, the oldest continuously-operating cathedral in the United States, is the heartbeat of the French Quarter. Masses and other sacraments were celebrated in French until 1910, and you’ll see French language everywhere on inscriptions. New Orleans contains many other breathtaking churches and shrines that contain treasures like an altar that won the 1897 Paris Exposition and a statue of Our Lady made for the last queen of France.
New Orleans is also rich in American Catholic heritage, home to the country's first Catholic convent, first Catholic school, first Black Catholic church parish, and first Black Catholic university.
The saints (and the Saints)
Dozens of saints have centered their work and are now buried in Paris. Although the United States has far fewer native saints (so far!), many of them are connected to New Orleans. You can visit the homes and apostolates built here by St Katharine Drexel and St Frances Cabrini. Blessed Francis Seelos and Venerable Henriette Delille lived, served, and are buried here. St John Paul II made a legendary visit to New Orleans in 1987. Even Pope Leo XIV’s great-grandparents were married and baptized in the French Quarter. There’s more: the windows of St Louis Cathedral depict St Louis IX designing Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. Outside the French Market stands a beloved statue of St Jeanne d’Arc, the identical twin of another across from the Louvre. And don’t forget the other New Orleans Saints, who are the NFL team officially associated with Paris.
And: the Winged Victory
One day as I walked home from a Saints game at the Superdome, I cut across a street in the Warehouse District. There she stood: a sky-scraper-sized mural of the Winged Victory. The same compelling beauty that first tugged my heart to Paris, not across an ocean but the corner.
You’ll get to Paris someday. But you don’t have to wait until then to plunge into a feast for your senses. New Orleans is already a dream come true.
P.S. Are you ready to come to my favorite place on earth? Thy Ship can help you build and book a New Orleans (or Paris!) trip you'll never forget.
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