Deep South: Nashville, Memphis, the Mississippi Delta and New Orleans

Arrive in Nashville

Nashville International Airport (BNA) to your hotel downtown, then Lower Broadway

• Welcome dinner
• Nuit : Nashville
• Environ 15 min de route

Soir

Plan to land by about 3 pm so you have time to settle in before the group meets at 5:30 pm; late arrivals are met and brought to dinner. Your See Sight Tours guide runs through the week ahead: the drives, the museum days, the evenings with live music and what the Delta heat is like. Then we sit down together to a welcome dinner downtown. Afterwards the guide walks the group down Lower Broadway, where the honky-tonks keep a band on stage from late morning until well after midnight, usually with no cover charge. Step into two or three, hear a few songs in each and find the room you like best. The hotel is a few blocks away, so anyone who wants an early night after the flight can slip off whenever they choose.

Compris

• Pick-up at Nashville International Airport (BNA)
• Welcome briefing with your guide
• Welcome dinner
• An evening walk down Lower Broadway and its honky-tonks with your guide

The Hall of Fame, Studio B and the Opry

Downtown Nashville to RCA Studio B on Music Row, then the Grand Ole Opry House

• Petit-déjeuner
• Nuit : Nashville
• Environ 30 min de route

Après-midi

Lunch is your choice downtown and the afternoon is free. Your ticket for the Ryman Auditorium is in your pocket: the 1892 tabernacle was home to the Opry from 1943 to 1974, and you can walk through it at your own pace.

Soir

In the evening we drive about 20 minutes east to the Grand Ole Opry House for the show, where several artists each play a short set, as the radio broadcast has done since 1925.

Compris

• Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum from opening
• RCA Studio B tour on Music Row
• Ryman Auditorium self-guided tour, at your own time
• The Grand Ole Opry, with transfers both ways

Activités en option

• Johnny Cash Museum
• National Museum of African American Music

West to Memphis and the Lorraine Motel

Nashville to Memphis on Interstate 40, then the National Civil Rights Museum and Beale Street

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Memphis
• Environ 3.5 h de route

Après-midi

By noon we are in Memphis, where lunch is a plate of pulled pork or ribs at a barbecue place downtown. In the early afternoon we walk into the National Civil Rights Museum, built around the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on the balcony outside Room 306 on 4 April 1968. The exhibits run from slavery and the Montgomery bus boycott through the sit-ins and Freedom Rides to the sanitation workers' strike that brought King to Memphis, and across the street the Legacy Building follows the investigation of his killing. Allow about three hours; your guide starts with you and then leaves you to your own pace. After check-in and a rest we go down to Beale Street together for a blues set in one of its clubs, cover charge included.

Soir

Dinner is your choice.

Compris

• Drive from Nashville to Memphis with your guide
• Barbecue lunch in Memphis
• National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, with the Legacy Building
• A blues set on Beale Street with your guide, cover charge included

Graceland and Sun Studio

Memphis to Graceland in Whitehaven, then Sun Studio on Union Avenue

• Petit-déjeuner
• Nuit : Memphis
• Environ 45 min de route

Matin

Graceland opens at 9 am and we take the first entry slot, so the mansion is quieter than it will be by late morning. Elvis bought the house in 1957, at 22, and the rooms are kept as they were in the 1970s: the white living room with its peacock stained glass, the wood-panelled kitchen, the Jungle Room with its green shag carpet. The tour ends in the Meditation Garden, where Elvis and his parents are buried.

Après-midi

Across the road the Elvis Presley's Memphis complex holds his cars, his stage costumes and his two private jets; give it an hour or two before a light lunch on site. In the afternoon we drive back towards downtown to Sun Studio, where Sam Phillips recorded "Rocket 88" in 1951 and Elvis made his first records in 1953 and 1954. The guided tour ends in the small studio room itself, which still works as a recording studio.

Soir

The rest of the afternoon and the evening are free: the Peabody ducks march out of the lobby fountain at 5 pm.

Compris

• Graceland mansion tour at the first entry of the day, with the Meditation Garden
• Elvis Presley's Memphis: the cars, costumes and jets
• Sun Studio guided tour

Activités en option

• Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum

Stax, then Highway 61 to Clarksdale

Memphis to the Stax Museum, then south on US 61 to Clarksdale, Mississippi

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Clarksdale
• Environ 2 h de route

Matin

A slower morning, then the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in South Memphis, rebuilt on the site of the old cinema where Stax Records cut hits for Otis Redding, Booker T. and the M.G.'s, Sam and Dave and Isaac Hayes, whose gold-trimmed Cadillac stands on the floor. Late morning we take US 61 south out of Memphis into Mississippi, about an hour and a half across the flat Delta, with cotton and soybean fields running to the tree line.

Après-midi

Lunch is in Clarksdale, then we spend the afternoon at the Delta Blues Museum in the old freight depot, where the cabin Muddy Waters lived in on Stovall Plantation has been rebuilt inside. Your guide shows you the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49, tied in legend to Robert Johnson, and the Riverside Hotel, which was the hospital where Bessie Smith died in 1937. The late afternoon is free.

Soir

Our departures are timed so this is a Friday or another night when Clarksdale's clubs and juke joints have live blues, and we go together, cover charge included.

Compris

• Stax Museum of American Soul Music
• Drive down US 61 into the Mississippi Delta with your guide
• Lunch in Clarksdale
• Delta Blues Museum
• The crossroads of Highways 61 and 49 and the Riverside Hotel
• An evening of live blues in a Clarksdale club, cover charge included

Dockery, Indianola and down to Natchez

Clarksdale to Dockery Farms and Indianola, then south on US 61 through Vicksburg to Natchez

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Natchez
• Environ 5 h de route

Après-midi

Lunch is in Indianola. In the afternoon we follow US 61 south, with a break on the Vicksburg riverfront, where a long floodwall of painted murals faces the Mississippi, and reach Natchez by about 5:30 pm.

Soir

The town stands on a bluff high above the river, and we walk to its edge for the evening light before a Southern dinner together.

Compris

• Dockery Farms with your guide
• B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola
• Lunch in Indianola
• A break on the Vicksburg riverfront
• Evening on the bluff in Natchez
• Southern dinner in Natchez

Natchez to New Orleans by way of the Whitney

Natchez to St. Francisville, then the Whitney Plantation on the River Road, then New Orleans

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : New Orleans
• Environ 3.5 h de route

Matin

Natchez in the morning: your guide walks the bluff and the old streets of downtown, then takes us to Forks of the Road, the site of one of the largest slave markets in the Deep South and now part of Natchez National Historical Park, and, where it is open, to the William Johnson House, home of a free Black barber whose diary records life in the town from 1835 to 1851; when it is closed, your guide tells his story outside it.

Après-midi

We leave at about 10:45 am and follow US 61 south into Louisiana, with lunch in St. Francisville, an old river town of live oaks and churches. Mid-afternoon we reach the Whitney Plantation on the River Road, a museum that tells the plantation's history through the lives of the people enslaved there, with memorial walls carrying their names. It is about an hour from there to New Orleans, where we check in by about 5:30 pm.

Soir

The evening is free: your guide will point you to Frenchmen Street, where the clubs have live jazz most nights.

Compris

• Morning walk in Natchez with your guide: the bluff, Forks of the Road and the William Johnson House (where open)
• Lunch in St. Francisville
• Whitney Plantation
• Drive to New Orleans with your guide

The French Quarter, a Creole lunch and Preservation Hall

A day on foot in the French Quarter and Tremé, with the streetcar for the afternoon

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : New Orleans

Après-midi

Late morning we cook our own lunch at a Creole cooking class, making and eating gumbo, jambalaya and pralines. The afternoon is free, with a streetcar pass for the St. Charles line out to the Garden District and Magazine Street, or time for the National WWII Museum.

Soir

In the evening we share a farewell dinner, then a concert at Preservation Hall, the small room on St. Peter Street where traditional jazz has been played since 1961.

Compris

• French Quarter walk with a local guide: Jackson Square, St. Louis Cathedral, the Cabildo, the French Market and Congo Square
• Creole cooking class with lunch
• A streetcar pass for the afternoon
• Farewell dinner
• Preservation Hall concert

Activités en option

• National WWII Museum
• Steamboat cruise on the Mississippi
• Swamp tour

New Orleans and home

French Quarter to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)

• Petit-déjeuner
• Environ 30 min de route

Matin

The morning is yours for a last walk along the Mississippi riverfront, café au lait and beignets, or the National WWII Museum, which opens at 9 am. Check out by late morning, and our driver takes you to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY), about 25 km west of the French Quarter and a 30 to 40 minute drive depending on traffic. Your guide sees the group to departures and checks your flight before saying goodbye. Book a flight leaving after about 1 pm. If yours leaves earlier, we arrange the transfer at the time you need and you skip the free morning. If you would like to stay on in New Orleans for the music, the food or a swamp trip, we can book extra nights at the same hotel and move your airport transfer to the day you fly.

Compris

• Drop-off at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)

Activités en option

• Extra nights in New Orleans, booked on request