The old core of Biloxi — the streets east of downtown, toward Ocean Springs — contains the city's pre-Katrina character in a way the casino strip does not. The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary anchors one end; the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum complex marks another. Between them, a handful of historic houses survived Katrina and give a sense of what a Gulf Coast town looked like before storms and development reshaped it.
The Back Bay side of the old town is particularly worth exploring on foot or by bike: a quieter face of the city, with fishermen's docks and seafood restaurants that serve the freshest catch without the markup of the beachfront establishments.