Mark and Mika have a lovely cottage in the Bywater that was everything we needed for our five day stay. The homes in that area are really fun and we enjoyed wandering around looking at the architecture. Additionally, the area was great for its accessibility to cafes, restaurants, and vintage shops. It's about a 20 min walk to Frenchman street (I'm glad we weren't right in the craziness of it), and a ten minute walk to the bars and comedy on St. Claude. I would recommend renting bikes for a day at Alex's Bikes (about 15 min walk) so you can get all the way into the French Quarter, downtown, and even uptown pretty easily.