What's happening in New Orleans this week?

Plan around what is shut. The Cabildo and the other Louisiana State Museum buildings on Jackson Square close on Mondays, and so does the New Orleans Museum of Art in City Park, which makes the National World War II Museum in the Warehouse District the cleaner Monday call. It opens daily and most first-timers need four hours there, so arrive when the doors open. Monday is also red beans and rice day in New Orleans, an old washday habit, and most po-boy counters in Mid-City and the Seventh Ward still put it on the Monday menu with smoked sausage on top for roughly $12 to $16. Many chef-run dining rooms in the Bywater and Uptown take Monday off, so check hours before you make the trip. Tuesday is the locals' brass band night. The Maple Leaf Bar on Oak Street has long hosted Rebirth Brass Band on Tuesdays, sets tend to start after 10:30pm, and by 11pm the low room is hot, loud and smells of beer.

For a first trip, pick Frenchmen Street over Bourbon Street every night of the week. Frenchmen's three blocks between Esplanade Avenue and Royal Street in the Marigny hold the Spotted Cat, d.b.a. and Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro, where two seated sets run most nights. Bourbon is louder, the pavement feels tacky underfoot, and by 11pm it smells of spilled Hand Grenades from Tropical Isle. Walk Bourbon once, before 9pm, then leave. Preservation Hall on St. Peter Street runs several 45-minute acoustic sets each evening, and advance tickets for Friday and Saturday tend to sell out. The Frenchmen Art Market puts up its string-lit stalls on most evenings late in the week. Solo-traveler safety scores 3.8/10 (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index). The dark blocks of the Marigny and Treme past Frenchmen after midnight explain much of that number, so take a rideshare back to the French Quarter instead of walking the edge of Rampart Street.

Saturday morning belongs at the Crescent City Farmers Market downtown, open 8am to noon, where the Gulf shrimp and hot boudin go first and satsumas start appearing as fall settles in. Sunday, though, is the best day of the New Orleans week: a social aid and pleasure club parades through Central City, Treme, or the Seventh Ward behind a brass band, most starting between noon and 1pm, and the crowd dancing behind it is the second line. WWOZ 90.7 FM posts the route sheets midweek on its Takin' It to the Streets page. Wear flat shoes and carry small bills, because the cooler sellers along the route charge about $3 a beer in cash. Saints home games at the Caesars Superdome fill the Poydras Street hotels on Sundays, and Sunday jazz brunch at Commander's Palace in the Garden District books out weeks ahead.

Autumn is the best stretch of the New Orleans year for being outside, with overnight readings near 14°C under clear skies and 64% humidity, and afternoons that tend to reach the mid-20s, so one light layer covers the swing from 9am to midnight. Mornings belong to Jackson Square, where painters hang canvases on the iron fence around 9am and St. Louis Cathedral's bells ring out over the tarot tables. Beignets at Café du Monde on Decatur Street come three to an order, buried in powdered sugar, and the takeout window line moves faster than the queue for a table. St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 on Basin Street admits visitors only with a licensed guide, a rule the Archdiocese brought in in 2015, so book that tour ahead.