"Tell the story of how we've overcome

We'll understand it better bye and bye."

-Traditional song performed by New Orleans musicians

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NEW ORLEANS - They hide their personal sorrows behind big smiles for tourists.

"We're so glad you're here," says tourism marketing official Lea Sinclair. She lost every possession to flooding and looting when Katrina hit in 2005.

Ask Jazz Fest producer Quint Davis about how things are going, and he says confidently, "We're not just trying to get back from Katrina. We ARE back." Two and a half years ago, he thought all was lost.

In some kind of miracle, New Orleans has indeed bounced back - for tourists.

And that's no small thing.

About 74 percent of pre-Katrina tourists have returned. Restaurants and hotel rooms are multiplying. The number of flights into the city's airport is rebounding.

Chief among the positive developments? The renaissance of New Orleans' cultural institutions, the glittering string of beads that makes life worthwhile and beautiful.

"At first, it was, `How can you talk about art when people are still homeless?'" says Shirley Corey, president of Louisiana Artworks, a new visual arts facility. "One thing that people thought was lost after Katrina was the city's soul, its arts and culture. But art heals."

So does tourism itself, says Sandra Shiltsone, president of New Orleans Tourism. "Maybe people think that they can't have a good time because of what the city has been through," she says. "But New Orleans loves to have a good time. We're open for business."

On a sunny spring Sunday afternoon, a slight breeze blows from the high, gray Mississippi River through the French Quarter. The old Natchez steamboat glides upstream, tooting its whistle five times, blasting out white puffs of steam while passengers wave from the rails.

The Quarter, the first place to recover from Katrina, looks fine and sounds better.

Live jazz pours out of doorways. Sleazy trinket shops do brisk business with odd characters who wander in and out. Carriage horses clop. Street performers flip. Antique shops line Royal Street with a parade of filigreed balconies.

At the famous Cafe Du Monde in French Market, the menu's reassuringly the same as it's been for a century: chicory-flavored coffee and the heavenly powdered sugar fritters called beignets.

In the Warehouse-Arts district, the historic St. Charles streetcar, a tourist favorite, will finally reopen its entire route in May, restoring service that has been around since 1835. Meanwhile, the Aquarium of the Americas has had every fish and urchin replaced by helpful sister aquariums around the country. It's good as new.

Nightlife? Jazz Fest's Davis counts 103 live music clubs now in town as musicians drift back and new ones make New Orleans their home. Plus, the city has about 850 restaurants, 130 more than pre-Katrina.

If you have a car and a good map, you can drive from the blossoming city center to the still-limping outskirts of New Orleans - including a tent village under the I-10 freeway.

Visitors without a car also can see the Katrina areas by taking a Gray Line bus tour.

It's worth doing, if only to appreciate how far most people have come - and how far they have to go.

In the worst-hit Lower Ninth Ward area, there are tiny signs of progress. New electric boxes and wires run to sagging houses. A green sign on a crooked one-story house says it all: "Rebuilding. Do Not Bull Doze. "

"Voluntourists" have made up the largest numbers of visitors to New Orleans the past couple years, and this area has seen a lot of them. (The tourism folks don't keep track of how many tourists are specifically here to help, but they keep a list of voluntourism opportunities at www.neworleanscvb.com.)

What about safety? There were 209 murders in New Orleans last year, the highest per capita city murder rate in the nation and worse than pre-Katrina days.

Police Superintendent Warren Riley predicts crime will fall this year.

"Two years ago compared to today is a complete turnaround," says the soft-spoken chief, whose depleted department got a morale boost in January when it finally left FEMA trailer offices and returned to a renovated police headquarters. He says tourist areas are safe.

"The criminal justice system has stabilized."

Jazz Fest - officially called the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival - is back to full strength, running through May 4. Featuring more than 400 acts, its metaphorical symbol of triumph is the performing return of hometown singer Aaron Neville for the first time since Katrina.

In November, Prospect 1, a huge new contemporary arts show, will debut. Its goal is to attract 100,000 contemporary art lovers, who normally do not visit the city.

Around the same time, Louisiana Artworks will open. The soaring facility in the Warehouse-Arts district features four floors of art space that will let visitors watch from catwalk-style walkways some of New Orleans' best-known glassblowers, metal workers, potters and painters.

"It was something on the verge of becoming, right before Katrina. Now, we're in the last mile," says Corey. "I think it's such a special, sweet time."

Here is the status of other cultural treasures:

-The New Orleans Museum of Art was guarded for weeks after Katrina by guards and staff as floodwaters and looters threatened. It survived with its $250 million worth of art intact, including its well-known collection of French paintings. It looks great and is open.

-The gorgeous Besthoff Sculpture Garden behind the museum is renovated, smells of sweet pittosporum blooms and its sculptures all survived. It was one of my favorite spots on my visit .

-The Louisiana Philharmonic performs but is still homeless. The Orpheum Theater, damaged in Katrina, sits gloomily on a downtown side street. A faded 2004-05 symphony schedule still is posted on the side of the dusty Beaux Arts building, and black mold grows on the walls.

Like the New Orleans Opera Association, the symphony has been playing instead at Tulane and Loyola universities and in the suburbs. When the opera's pre-Katrina home, Mahalia Jackson Auditorium, reopens in 2009, the symphony will play there, too.

Rose gardens are a metaphor for the city's rebirth, so I was particularly happy to see that the roses in Louis Armstrong Park were blooming their heads off - big, bold and confident. About a third of the park is back to normal, but the rest of it is still full of damaged buildings. (You may find a gate open, but the park still is officially closed while the National Parks Service and city rebuild park structures and restore electricity.)

Ironically, tourism may also help return normalcy to a city where even the strongest people still suffer from traumatic emotions. "I still cry every day. Things get to you," says Leo Watermeier, who tends the roses in Armstrong Park.

He replanted, repaired and coaxed them back to bloom after the storm, and it worked: Now they bloom hard and long and lush. "I'm trying to make it better than before."

The roses are also back in bloom at the New Orleans Botanical Gardens in nearby City Park. It was devastated by 3 to 6 feet of standing water for 10 days. It underwent $1 million in renovations; the gardens are recovering.

The World War II Museum was undamaged by the hurricane. But New Orleans' most popular museum saw its visitor numbers plummet by nearly 100,000 in the year after Katrina. Now, it's back on the upswing and planning $60 million in upgrades.

New Orleans music clubs? They're the best part of the city. The music, all of it live and a lot of it free, wafts across the city like liquid sunshine, day and night.

There is no bad music in New Orleans.

Besides, the musicians finally have something to sing about - overcoming this tragedy, bye and bye.

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IF YOU GO:

LODGING: New Orleans has nearly 32,000 hotel rooms up and running. Get good deals by shopping around.

One choice: Iberville Suites, less expensive property owned by the Ritz Carlton, is on the edge of the French Quarter; rates from $129 a night (www.ibervillesuites.com, 866-229-4351).

TRANSPORTATION: You don't need a car, but it's nice to have one if you plan to visit the nearby towns or parishes. Streetcars and taxis are plentiful in town.

FOR MORE: Get tourist information on all the attractions mentioned in this story, plus a free New Orleans official visitors guide, at 800-810-3200 or www.neworleansonline.com

BEST GUIDEBOOK: "New Orleans 2008" (Fodor, $17.95).Completely up-to-date.