Sunshine and mild temperatures helped bring the crowds out yesterday as New Orleans' first post-Katrina Mardi Gras got under way.
But a stroll through the French Quarter is a lot easier now than it was this time last year.
"Right now, you can walk right down the middle of Bourbon Street. Before, it was so crowded, it was almost an adventure trying to get across," said Scott Escarra, the manager of the famed Cafe du Monde.
New Orleans' annual pre-Lenten celebration of Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is one of the city's major tourism events.
Yesterday's events included the arrival at the Mississippi Riverfront of Rex, King of Carnival, followed by fireworks that capped a day of riverside concerts and the annual Orpheus parade, a spectacle of fibre-optic lit floats led by Harry Connick and featuring actors Steven Seagal and Josh Hartnett.
After a rainy Saturday forced postponement of some parades, fair weather brought out more people. Throngs lining the routes of the family-friendly uptown parades were thick, but still not as deep as in year's past.
Restaurants reported brisk business, but there are now fewer of them to fill up: 506 are operating, out of 1,882 restaurants pre-Katrina, said Tom Weatherly, vice president for research with the New Orleans Restaurant Association.
Hotel rooms were filled, but again, there are fewer - about 15,000 instead of the 25,000 last year.
PA