New Orleans Garden District Tour: Private Mansion, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 & Local Praline Maker

Immerse yourself in the opulence of the Old South of this tour of New Orleans’ prettiest neighborhood with an expert local guide and a small group of no more than 20 people. Your historic Garden District tour begins on a sweet note with a behind-the-scenes visit to an old praline-makers shop. You’ll learn how New Orleans’ most famous confection was brought to the city from Europe and taste one hot out of the copper pots. Next, you’ll hop onto a street car with all-inclusive tickets and zip down St. Charles Ave. en route to the Garden District. This area of grand mansions and wide, tree-lined streets is home to some of the best-preserved, pre-Civil-War mansions in America as well as a slew of celebrity homes. Your guide will introduce you to the history of the area as you see the grand mansions built by wealthy plantation-owners and now owned by famous people like Beyonce and Sandra Bullock. Along the way, you’ll stop off at one of America’s most unique graveyards, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, to see famous family-plots and spooky old mausoleums. You’ll also learn about the practical difficulties of running a cemetery below sea level. For the highlight of the tour, you’ll step inside the Elms Mansion, a 150-year old Italianate home that is one of the most impressive in the City. As you tour the opulent rooms, you’ll learn about the businessmen and plantation owners who built these stately residences and the wealthy world that they created in New Orleans before the Civil War. Your tour ends in the Mansion’s beautiful garden with an ice cold glass of lemonade or sweet tea in the shade of the largest magnolia tree in the South