Day 3 – New Orleans – Baton Rouge – Natchez

Today you will enter the state of Mississippi as you travel towards Natchez. Every year thousands of people come to Natchez for the pilgrimages that offer visits of the many Antebellum homes in the area. The gracious citizens open their homes, which have been lovingly restored, so that visitors can get a glimpse of the southern prosperous life. The town itself is a great example of late 19th century architecture. Enjoy a stroll through town and peek into the charming shops.

Day 4 – Natchez – Mississippi River Valley – Memphis

Leave Natchez and drive on to Memphis. As a large river port, it was one of the most important links in the cotton trade before the Civil War. Memphis is also known as the “Home of the Blues.” It was here that W. C. Handy first played his Memphis Blues and many other tunes that earned him the reputation of “Father of the Blues”. A brief city tour will take you to the city’s liveliest street, Beale Street, where the Blues and other types of music are played nightly in almost a dozen clubs. Travel along historic Front Street, known as Cotton Row in the days when cotton traders and merchants conducted business here. Look across the Mississippi River to Arkansas as Hernando De Soto did in 1541, as the first European to see the Big River. Of course, no visit to Memphis would be complete without a visit to Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley (optional).