Highway 61 at last!

We left New Orleans on Interstate 10 but shifted over to Highway 61 after 30 miles to start our journey proper. The route to Baton Rouge was more picturesque than the guidebook led us believe. It swung through wetlands on raised roads then over farmland and through verdant woodland. We decided not to turn off 61 to visit Cajun country in Lafayette but drove up through Baton Rouge and on to Natchez (220 miles). Cajun and Zydeco music will have to wait until another time.

Natchez was originally founded by the French and became an important trading port along the Mississippi. The town is built on a bluff and provides a great view over the river. The plantation owners built their mansions here and before the Civil War the town housed half of America’s millionaires. Many faced ruin after the conflict.

We visited one of these great houses called Longwood. The house was built in the shape of an octagon in the 19^th century oriental style by Haller Nutt, a very wealthy plantation owner who died of pneumonia during the war aged only 48. His wife was ruined as a result of the war and they were not able to finish this magnificent house. The family lived in the basement until the 1960s but it was never finished. Fourteen similar houses are open to the public. Natchez is a very elegant town.

Longwood built but not finished by Haller Nutt

The Skeleton of the unfinished Octagon at Longwood

We drove down to the old quay where the steamboats tied up and had a cool beer at the Mark Twain Guesthouse and Bar.

The old quay at Natchez-under-the-Hill

A cold beer by the Mississippi

Off to Vicksburg tomorrow and then Jackson (Mississippi's capital and an important place in the history of the Blues)