 |
| Hotel Provincial in New Orleans. |
Some time ago, one of my wife’s friends told her about a
place in New Orleans called Café Du Monde, which is an old, open-air coffee
shop famous for its beignets and café au lait. She made up her mind that she
wanted to go, so we decided to go check it out on Saturday. She put me in
charge of driving, and she made all of the hotel arrangements.
I later learned that she’d booked us a room at the Hotel
Provincial, which is located on Chartres Street in the French Quarter, a short
walk from Café Du Monde. When she told me that she’d booked a room there, I
sort of just filed it away and went on about my business. However, as the days
rocked on, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d heard about this old hotel
somewhere before.
Last Thursday, after we’d gotten the paper out for the week,
I finally took the time to Google “Hotel Provincial” and discovered why I’d
heard of it before. According to more than a few sources online, the Hotel
Provincial has the reputation for being one of the most haunted hotels in the
world.
According to a 2015 story published in USA Today, under the
headline “The 13 most haunted hotels in the world,” the Hotel Provincial, “like
many New Orleans properties… claims to be a popular paranormal activity hub.
Like other area hotels, the property acted as a medical facility for wounded
Confederate soldiers and is said to still possess their spirits. From distressed
soldiers and operating doctors to pools of blood, guests have reported it all.”
The portion of the hotel where our room was located was
originally built in the 1830s and served as a Creole-style business store with
living quarters on the second floor. The building served as a commercial
property for many years, including time as a hardware store. The building was
restored in 1964 and became part of the Hotel Provincial at that time.
To be perfectly honest, my wife and I didn’t spend a lot of
time in the hotel room. We were too busy eating beignets and exploring the
French Quarter on foot. When we finally got ready to call it a day, we returned
to our room well after dark with an eye toward getting an early start on Sunday
morning.
That is not to say that nothing out of the ordinary happened
during our stay at the Hotel Provincial. Around 3 a.m., I awoke from a dead
sleep to what sounded like a loud scratching at the window. Our room was on the
second floor and the windows were well off the ground, overlooking a back
street below.
The scratching sound was loud and sounded metallic. My first
thought was that it sounded like someone scratching on the window with a garden
tool or maybe a large cat scratching on the glass. I was about half asleep when
all of this took place, and it took me a second to come fully awake.
I went to the window, which was actually a locked
door-height opening that let out onto a balcony fire escape. The area was well
illuminated by street lamps, and I didn’t see anything unusual outside. The
stairs to the fire escape were drawn up into the balcony and all I could figure
was that the sound that I’d heard was the sound of the metal fire escape
grinding against the floor of the balcony.
I stood there for what seemed like a long time listening. It
was around 3 a.m. in the French Quarter, so I could hear the sounds of music
and revelry in the distance, but other than that everything seemed fairly
quiet. Eventually, I went back to bed.
In the end, my wife and I enjoyed our stay at the Hotel
Provincial, and we’ll probably stay there again the next time we get a craving
for beignets. In the meantime, if you’re interested in reading more about this
hotel’s haunted history, I encourage you to do a little research online. Some
of the stories about this property are pretty wild, but I suspect that most of
them have a logical explanation.
No comments:
Post a Comment