Great River Road Lower Mississippi

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. New Orleans

   New Orleans exists because of a bend. The French founded the city in 1718 on a crescent of high ground in the Mississippi River, a spot that gave them a portage to Lake Pontchartrain and control of the great river's mouth, and the bend still shapes everything, from street names to the way people give directions by river and lake rather than by compass. The city is mostly below sea level, kept dry by levees and pumps, and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 the whole country learned how fragile that arrangement can be. People here talk about it plainly and carry on.

   Read the complete New Orleans write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   New Orleans sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Baton Rouge.

2. 2. Baton Rouge

   The first thing you notice coming into Baton Rouge from the river is the State Capitol, a thirty-four storey art deco tower rising out of the flat, green land beside the Mississippi. Huey Long, the governor and later senator who ran Louisiana like a personal fiefdom, had it built in the early 1930s, and it remains the tallest state capitol in the country. Long was shot in its corridors in 1935 and is buried in the gardens in front, his statue facing the building. The observation deck near the top gives a long view over the river, the refineries and the endless swamp forest beyond.

   Read the complete Baton Rouge write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Baton Rouge comes up 116 km in. Next is Natchez.

3. 3. Natchez

   Natchez sits on a high bluff above the Mississippi, the southern end of the long, gentle ribbon that is the Natchez Trace Parkway. About fifteen thousand people live in town now, but in the decades before the Civil War it was among the richest places in the country, home to cotton planters whose mansions still stand along the quiet streets. Many of those houses are open to visitors, and the old river landing at Natchez Under-the-Hill, once a rowdy port, sits below the bluff with a view of the huge brown river and the bridge to Louisiana.

   Read the complete Natchez write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   At least 246 km in you reach Natchez. Next is Vicksburg.

4. 4. Vicksburg

   Vicksburg stands on high bluffs above the Mississippi, and in 1863 that height made it the most important place in the western theatre of the American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln called it the key: whoever held these bluffs controlled the river. Ulysses S. Grant spent months trying to take it, then besieged the city for forty-seven days until the Confederate garrison surrendered on 4 July 1863. Together with Gettysburg the day before, it turned the war, and the town famously did not celebrate the Fourth of July for many decades afterward.

   Read the complete Vicksburg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Vicksburg, late in the day.

Recorded source links

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