“Madame Lily Devalier always asked "Where are you?" in a way that insinuated that there were only two places on earth one could be: New Orleans and somewhere ridiculous.”― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

Nowhere on Earth will you find the mix of bright colors, spicy food, lively music, and colorful characters that you will in the French Quarter. And, it’s history is just as colorful. Founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, sieur de Bienville, La Nouvelle-Orleans remained an outpost of the French and Spanish empires until the United States bought it with the rest of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Even today, with it's mix of French, Spanish, and American architecture, New Orleans seems as much European as American.

New Orleans was originally populated by vagabonds, smugglers, thieves, the refuse of Parisian jails (who agreed to marry prostitutes and take them to Louisiana), and “ruffians who have thus far cheated the gallows of its due.” Yet, by 1724 the colony’s second engineer, Adrien de Pauger, had declared, “New Orleans is growing before our eyes, and there is no longer any doubt that it is going to become a great city.” And, a great city is what New Orleans has become, and it’s very heart is the place of it’s original founding, what we now call the French Quarter.