Today we made a return to Memphis, which we’d visited in 2012 on our Cross-country trip. At that time we’d done the major sites of the town ( Graceland, of course!) so today was more about sights en-route to Memphis.
We were keen to drive a section of the Natchez Trace Parkway. The parkway is owned and maintained by the National Park service and runs along the route of the ancient Natchez Trace. This was originally a pathway hich ran roughly 440 miles from Natchez on the Mississippi River to Nashville, Tennessee, linking the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers.
It was created and used for centuries by Native Americans, and was later used by early European and American explorers, traders, and emigrants in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was also used by generals to march their troops down in the revolutionary war of 1812.
The Parkway meanders along through lovely green forested country but the space around it is very narrow in parts. While on the parkway you can feel like you;re in the middle of nowhere and then suddenly you’ll drive over a brisge and see small towns and highways below you – the “real world” was just out there! We made stops at pretty overlooks and picnic grounds as well as a few historic locations.
In a few places they have preserved sections of the original Old Natchez Trace pathway, and we took the opportunity to walk along it and stretch our legs. The roadway was really VERY quiet for most of the drive and we saw very few other vehicles, so when we were walking the old Trace we only heard the birs and the crickets – just like the original users of the Trace.
Neil walking the Old Trace
A pretty waterfall along the route
One major historic spot is the monument and grave of Merewether Lewis. Lewis, along with William Clerk led the Corp of Discovery expedition atoss the USA in 1804 to find a route across the continent. Ther’s was a successful journey but sadly, Lewis did not prosper afterwards, and he is believed to have shot himself in a small cabin on the Natches Trace in 1809.
Eventually we left the Trace and headed south westward across Tennessee to visit Shiloh, shich was the location of a major battle in the Civil War. There’s an excellent museum here and the National park service maintains the battlefield with monuments and plaques detailing the lines of Union ad Confederate soldiers. They also have a graveyard here for many of the soldiers killed in the battle.
This monument marks the location of Union general, Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters.
Back on the road we dipped just over the border into Mississippi for some of the drive on to Memphis. From the number of confederate flags we saw flying outside houses and some of the murals you can see that they haven’t really forgotten the “War Between the States” down here!
It was a long drive today and we didn’t arrive in Memphis till 5pm. For this trip I’d decided it would be nice to stay near the river so I’d booked us into a lovely plushy hotel right on the river just south of downtown. I knew it would be nice but we turned out to get a plushier experience than I;d expected – first we were offerred a glass of champagne at checkin, and then when we arrived at our room we discovered we’d been upgraded to a corner suite with a lovely view of the river. very nice!
Neil taking pictures of the Mississippi River.
or inner we ate in the hotel restaurnat with a gorgeous view of the sunset over the river. We order a selection of tapas-style “small plates” but hadn’t expected them to be served all at the same time! They barely fit on the table.
Another nice touch was returning to the room to find that we’d been left chocolates and port as part of the turn-down service. And a nice drop of port it was!
