A 2 Week Deep South Road Trip - Part 1
- Lucy and the lens
- Sep 9, 2018
- 4 min read
In April 2017 Patrick and I flew into Nashville, Tennessee and then headed south for a road trip full of stunning scenery, fantastic (mostly fried) food, and even better music. Below is what our itinerary looked like - the days in bold I will describe in this blog post - the rest will come in my next post!
Day 1 and 2: Nashville, Tennessee
Day 3 and 4: Memphis, Tennessee
Day 5: Tupelo, then drive the Natchez Trace Parkway to Natchez
Day 6: Natchez, Mississippi
Day 7, 8 and 9: New Orleans, Lousiana
Day 10: Monroeville, Alabama and Senoia, Georgia
Day 11 and 12: Savannah, Georgia
Day 13 and 14: Charleston, South Carolina
Day 15 and 16: Washington DC
Day 1 and 2: Nashville, Tennessee
We arrived in Nashville after a nightmare of a journey - our morning flight from Washington D.C. was cancelled due to strong winds in Chicago, and when we were switched to a later evening flight, Patrick got allocated a seat but I got put on the reserve list! It was a miracle we both made it in the end - sadly, we missed out on a whole day to explore the city, but at least we made it! We got up bright and early the next day to get to The Gulch and Biscuit Love for a totally acceptable breakfast of fried chicken & biscuits and deep-fried biscuit dough balls with lemon mascarpone. Just around the corner from the restaurant you can visit the famous What Lifts You mural that is a perfect photo opportunity.
We had to forfeit the Country Music Hall of Fame thanks to our flight delay, but we made the most of the music scene on Honky Tonk Row and spent the evening watching live music. Although we checked out a few bars, we spent most of our time at The Stage on Broadway - it has three floors of live music, the ground floor being the largest and busiest, followed by the second floor, while the rooftop stage offers something a little calmer combined with great views over Nashville! The purple-painted Tootsie's Orchid Lounge is also iconic and well worth a visit!
Day 3 and 4: Memphis, Tennessee
We had such a fun night watching country music in Nashville that Memphis had a lot to live up to. We shouldn't have worried though, because although Memphis had a whole different vibe (and draws a very different crowd!) to Nashville, the live music scene was just as good and we spent two whole days listening to it in one form or another.
First, there was the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum, run by the Smithsonian Institution, and boasting one of the coolest concepts for a music museum ever. You're given a headset and MP3 player when you arrive, but instead of reading out facts, it's actually your personal jukebox - as you visit each area of the museum, you can choose from a list of jukebox songs: all you do is type the correct number into your MP3 player and you can listen to music as you browse! This immersed me in the history of rock and soul and brought the exhibits to life like no other museum has before or since.
Then, of course, there is Beale Street. A few comments we heard during our trip seemed to recommend that we avoid Beale Street in favour of more 'authentic' blues music neighbourhoods, but there's something about the bright lights and the fact that you can step into literally any bar and there'll be live blues playing is just the best. Although we checked out quite a few venues, our favourite was the iconic Blues City Band Box at the Blues City Cafe, where we watched an entire set by Blind Mississippi Morris (and had a quick chat with him afterwards - starstruck!) We also had an amazing rack of BBQ rips, if that isn't impressive enough. Another favourite was Mr Handy's Juke Joint, pictured below.
Finally, you can't visit Memphis without a trip to Graceland, home of Elvis Presley. I've always had a general respect for Elvis but I wouldn't have called myself a fan, so I was approaching Graceland as a bit of a cynic, expecting a tacky, heavily-commercialised experience. What I got though, was a deep insight into Elvis' life behind his persona, through documentary footage, exhibits and, of course, the tour of his incredible house, to the point that by the time we made it to Elvis' memorial in the gardens of the house, I was feeling straight up emotional. Even if you're not an Elvis fan, Graceland offers a moving, human story of one of the world's greatest superstars and the struggles that came with that responsibility.
Day 5: Tupelo and the Natchez Trace Parkway
We were so impressed by our visit to Graceland, that we decided to make a pilgrimage to Elvis' birth town of Tupelo. We got to explore Elvis' childhood home and were surprised by how quiet it was. There were maybe five other visitors the whole time we were there.
From Tupelo, we took the Natchez Trace Parkway all the way down to Natchez, Mississippi. The Trace is not a quick drive - it took us about 7 hours in total - but it is a beautiful one. There are scenic stops and points of historical interest the whole way, but to stop at all of them would have taken us the whole day, so we had to be choosy! We found a beautiful lake to eat our lunch beside, for example, and took a trail that led us into a delightfully eerie cedar swamp.
We arrived in Natchez close to sunset and checked into our incredible antebellum B&B, Starling's Rest. After dinner in town, where some locals insisted we try their chicken wings before ordering our own (can confirm - they were heavenly), we headed back to Starling's Rest and spent the night watching a silent movie (Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr - hilarious!), eating popcorn and sipping toffee apple moonshine thanks to an honour-box system. It was perfect.
Look out for my second post detailing the second part of our deep south road trip!
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