Fodor's Expert Review St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

The oldest and most famous of New Orleans's cities of the dead, founded in the late 1700s, is just one block from the French Quarter. Stately rows of crypts are home to many of the city's most legendary figures, including Homer Plessy of the Plessy v. Ferguson 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing the "Jim Crow" laws ("separate but equal"), and voodoo queen Marie Laveau, whose grave is still a popular pilgrimage among the spiritual, the superstitious, and the curious. Visitors are required to be part of a tour group in order to enter the cemetery (all tours leave from  501 Basin St.); tours are frequent---every 15 minutes---but since group sizes are limited, advance reservations are recommended.