3. Marie Laveau's Tomb: For a city so steeped in the mysteries of voodoo, there's precious little trace of it left. Voodoo shops tend to be of the Disney variety and while the Voodoo Museum is one of the best little museums in the United States, it only demands an hour's perusal. To get to the bare bones of the cult, take a trip north of the French Quarter to the eerie St Louis Cemetery Number 1 (425 Basin Street. Tel: [1504] 482 5065) where the high priestess of the city's voodoo culture, Marie Laveau, is buried. Known as the 'Voodoo Queen' or 'Bosswoman', Laveau was feared and regaled by the populace of mid-19th-century New Orleans. In her black-magic rituals she could allegedly summon the evil spirits 'La Loup Garou' (the wolfman) or even 'Papa La Bas' (the devil). A powerful local character with 15 children, she was the matriarch of the city until 1869 when local followers turned their faith to her rival, Malvina Latour. Laveau died in 1881 and was buried in a traditional New Orleans tomb, a type that is built above ground to prevent corpses and remains being washed away by the regular floods that inundate the city.
4. Zam's Bayou Swamp Tour, Kraemer: If swamps and out-of-the-way villages in the steamy Bayou bring to mind the words 'squeal like a pig', this tiny shack-town is not for you. If discovering the mysteries of the gnarly mangrove swamps is your thing then Kraemer will be a hit. Situated on Lac des Allemands Bayou, Kraemer is worth a visit principally because of Zam's Bayou Swamp Tour, whose colourful namesake gives a tour your average Frommer's guide would frown at. Zam makes most of his money selling alligator skulls - apparently he sells 10,000 a year. If Zam can't be bothered to take you on a tour, his son 'Wild Bill' will, and as well as explain the area's history and nature, he'll boast about his drinking and womanising. This is not a tour for the squeamish (Zam's Bayou Swamp Tours, US Route 90 to Highway 307, then 16km north, across the drawbridge, and hang a quick right).
5. Mississippi walkway: One of the saddest truths about the birthplace of jazz is that there's a terrible paucity of it in the city. The cutting-edge clubs left Bourbon Street years ago to make way for tourist-trapping covers-band bars. Even Tipitinas, the spiritual home of New Orleans jazz, has become a parody of itself. For a real - and cheap - taste of the local talent, walk down to the muddy banks of the roiling Mississippi. There, on the paved waterside walkway, the city's struggling musicians and out-of-work jazzmen play for spare change to passers-by. True, most of the performers are poor or homeless locals, but they sure can play. The city has tried for years to move them along but with so much history at stake it has proven an almost impossible task. Try the walkway as it passes along the riverside of the French Quarter for the greatest concentration of horn, clarinet and trumpet blowers.