09/27/2023
Viking Mississippi Cruise Ship with all outside staterooms, expansive windows and comfortable amenities make it the first truly modern cruise ship in the region! The public spaces that are reimagined for Mississippi River voyages. Call, text email: Christopher Love 970-389-7112 - [email protected]
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Heart of the Delta: New Orleans, Louisiana, to Memphis, Tennessee: 12 days, 8 tours included!
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Discover Southern culture and charm. Immerse yourself in the history and heritage of this journey, bookended by New Orleans and Memphis. Attend a Privileged Access Mississippi Delta Blues Experience in Greenville and be inspired by the stories of famed musicians and iconic civil rights heroes. Savor delicious Cajun and Creole cuisine, as well as Memphis’s famous barbecue. And stir your soul with the rhythms of Dixieland jazz, Delta blues, and gospel. Your Viking Cruise includes one shore excursion in each port of call (excluding embarkation and disembarkation ports).
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DAYS 1-3: New Orleans, Louisiana “The Big Easy” radiates charm and is renowned for its Southern hospitality, from the old-world architecture of the French Quarter to its vibrant jazz and blues music to the cultural influences of Creole cuisine and Mardi Gras. New Orleans is home to the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world!
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DAY 4: Darrow, Louisiana, is the gateway to the historic mansions and plantations of the Lower Mississippi region, meticulously kept to preserve the memory of early Southern American history. It is easy to imagine steamboats and other vessels delivering supplies and materials to these stately front doors.
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DAY 5: Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, paints a historic picture on the eastern bank of the Mississippi. Its cultural diversity features Cajun and Creole music and cuisine, as well as arts that reflect the European immigrant settlers and the African people brought as enslaved people. The city boasts the tallest capitol building in the United States.
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DAY 6: St. Francisville, Louisiana, boasts more than 140 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. Founded in 1809, it is the oldest town in Louisiana’s Florida Parishes and is along one of the most historic bluffs of the Mississippi.
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DAY 7: Natchez, Mississippi, has one of the highest concentrations of historic Southern estates in the country, with more than 200 perfectly preserved homes lining its avenues. It is the oldest city on the Mississippi, established in 1716 by French colonists and named for the Natchez tribe, which once called it home. Today, it evokes small-town America.
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DAY 8: In Vicksburg, Mississippi, on a high bluff where the Yazoo River flows into the Mississippi during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln called it “the key to the South.” And it indeed proved to be the site of the conflict’s most pivotal battle, the Battle of Vicksburg, after which the Confederates surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant. The Vicksburg National Military Park preserves the battle site’s rolling green fields and grand monuments.
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DAY 9: Greenville, Mississippi, is the largest river port, set atop the highest point along the Mississippi River between Vicksburg and Memphis. The Muppets creator Jim Henson was born here, and the city has been home to numerous authors, including noted historian Shelby Foote. Neighboring Indianola was the hometown of the legendary B.B. King.
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DAY 10: Rosedale, Mississippi, is known as “the land where the blues began.” The town was immortalized in Robert Johnson’s 1937 recording “Traveling Riverside Blues.” After breakfast, disembark your ship and transfer a Mercedes motor coach for a 2-1/2 hour drive along the eastern bank to Memphis, Tennessee, where flavorful dry rub barbecue ribs, B.B. King, and Elvis Presley’s Graceland rule subpreme. We make checking into your Memphis hotel hassle-free! (If you start in Memphis, you get a whole day in Rosedale.)
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DAY 11: Memphis, Tennessee, the “Queen City of the South,” is the birthplace of Memphis blues, popular in vaudeville shows of the early 20th century. Memphis famously boasts a wealth of civil rights history, much of it along Beale Street and at the Lorraine Motel, site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. It is also the home of Graceland, the mansion where Elvis Presley, “the King of Rock ’n’ Roll,” lived.
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DAY 12: Disembark early and enjoy your day before you head home. I hope your voyage was the river experience you imagined.
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