We were up early and as I still haven’t tried a beignet I took a quick walk to the French Quarter to get some café au lait and beignets. It initially felt nice and cool outside but after a couple of minutes of walking it was the usual sweaty heat! I really liked the beignets and the café au lait is the perfect accompaniment – you HAVE to have that and not a normal coffee or latte or anything like that. We packed up as we had to be out of the hotel at 11am, and I managed to get ANOTHER takeout from Mother’s Restaurant as I was so disappointed with the previous night’s food. I got more rice and beans and jambalaya and I’m happy to report that they were both very good! Mother’s is a great restaurant and very, very authentic which explains the constant queues of not just tourists, but also locals.
We spent another quite long and uneventful time on the road – though we did cross a few long bridges across lakes and sea. Pensacola was another place where I made a last minute change to the hotel booking that I made ages ago to get us into a better/closer to town hotel and I was glad we did when we checked in. The Sole Inn & Suites was a nice place and close enough to the town to walk around and get some nice dinner. We got to the hotel early-ish and decided to go to Pensacola Beach which was really lovely. It was my first introduction to the ridiculously warm water of the Gulf of Mexico and we sat around on the beach for a while just enjoying the view, the sun and the sand on our toes. The beach wasn’t very busy but I can imagine it getting very busy on the weekend. We checked out the area closer to the pier as well (our first stop was in a quieter area) which was busier but still very good. The beaches are amazingly clean and white – maybe it has something to do with the fact that there was no alcohol allowed and bins everywhere?! From the beach we stopped at the Walmart so Brian could replace his Birkenstocks that I’ve been whinging about for weeks because of the nose numbing smell!
Back at the hotel we had a shower and walked around town for a bit and up to Jaco’s Bayfront Bar & Grill where we sat outside with a lovely view of the harbour. I had a Cuban sandwich with pork loin, ham & cheese and Brian had the burger. Fortunately this meal was a LOT more successful than the previous night’s one and we had a very pleasant time at Jaco’s. They had a good beer list as well as some nice wine that I could try out so it was no hardship sitting on the patio watching the sun set. We walked back up to the hotel and stopped at World of Beer (WOB) for a drink – I was planning to only have one and then carry on to another couple of places I wanted to try but in the end we stayed there all night! They have an absolutely astonishing beer list, both on draft and in bottles. I think they probably have something in the region of 500 different bottled beers and 50 on draft. Not that I had any as I was drinking wine, but still. They also had a friendly barman which always helps!
Pensacola was another pleasant surprise that was just a stopover but ended up being rather nice! The town seems quite posh with some very nice looking restaurants and interesting bars – and that’s just the bit we saw; well worth a stopover!
Biltong and Burger 