Ever since seeing Show Boat in my local cinema as a teenager, I have wanted to cruise up the Mississippi River on a paddlewheel steamer. Now, here I am on the dock in New Orleans waiting to board The American Queen.

ADORNED WITH LAYERS OF LACY WHITE BALCONIES, a scarlet paddlewheel and towering, ebony smoke stacks, the Queen certainly lives up to her name both outside and within, as I discover upon ascending the gangplank and entering the grand, Victorian-style Mark Twain Gallery, Exploring the boat, I pass along corridors of rooms named after different states, towns and famous people. Opening the door to South Dakota, I find Deep South instead – a welcoming double bed, comfy chair, a writing desk complete with a few tempting books to read, and a balcony overlooking the wide, sparkling river. With the rollicking sound of the boat’s calliope and the thrashing of the paddlewheel in the background, we pull away from port and I head for the Chart Room, where ‘Riverlorian’ Jerry Hay fills us in on some essential facts. The river got its name from a Native American word Missis-Sepi (large river) and large it is, flowing about 2,300 (or 2,552) miles, depending on who’s counting, from its headwaters in Itasca State Park, Minnesota, to the Gulf of Mexico. It was probably first viewed by Europeans when Hernando de Soto saw it in 1541, and, 130 years later, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the river – and all its tributaries and the land watered by them – for France. It didn’t become part of the USA until 1803, when Napoleon sold the whole Louisiana Purchase package off to then US President Thomas Jefferson.

A RIVERFRONT LINED WITH PLANTATIONS AND WEALTHY TOWNS

In the first half of the 19th-century, when the river was lined with millionaires’ cotton and sugar-cane plantations and thriving port towns, it was a major highway filled with steamboats, barges, keel boats and other vessels. Among their crew members was a river pilot named Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known today as Mark Twain, who put the river’s colourful lifestyle on the international map with such novels as Life on the Mississippi, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Then came the 1861-65 American Civil War, which defeated the Southern Confederacy, ended the plantation lifestyle and decimated some of the riverside towns, notably Vicksburg, about 300 miles upriver and our ultimate destination.

Whereas in 1833 there were more than 1,200 steamboats on the river, today there are very few. Only the 436-passenger American Queen, built in 1995 as the largest steamboat ever and then refitted and relaunched in 2012, offers overnight accommodation on an authentic paddlewheel boat cruising the Mississippi and its tributary Ohio and Tennessee rivers. Along the way, it visits such cities as Memphis (its home port) and Chattanooga, Tennessee; St Louis, Missouri; St Paul, Minnesota; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, plus numerous smaller communities and plantations.

That evening I am joined in the grand JM White Dining Room by two delightful dinner companions, New Orleans-based American Queen employee Marie Miele and her New York State-based sister, Carole. And what a splendid and very Southern meal it is – five courses, including crawfish in a Cajun beurre blanc sauce, roasted quail in a pepper crust, and a sumptuous selection of desserts. Then it’s off to the boat’s theatre for mint juleps and a jolly evening of show tunes belted out by four talented young performers in Victoria-era costumes.

Alas, a visual survey of my surrounding passengers does not reveal a single, dashing Gaylord Ravenal (as portrayed by Howard Keel in the 1951 film Show Boat) or, for that matter, a beauteous Magnolia Hawks (Kathryn Grayson) or Julie LaVerne (Ava Gardner). Mainly, they appear to be pleasant, middle-aged, mid-American couples, with a few European visitors adding an exotic note to the mix.

Retiring to a rocking chair on the deck, I survey the scene as we glide past giant petrochemical complexes and huge, tugboat-propelled convoys, giving way later to a silent, almost-primeval landscape without a twinkling light in sight – the towns and plantations along the way are all either inland or sheltered behind high, flood-protection levies.

A VISIT TO A HOLLYWOOD FILM-SET PLANTATION

Next day we reach our first stop, Oak Alley Plantation. With its quarter mile avenue of 300-year-old, Spanish-moss-swathed oak trees leading to a majestic Greek Revival mansion fronted by 28 colossal Doric columns, it’s straight out of a Hollywood film. In fact, numerous films have been made here, including the TV film version of The Long Hot Summer, partly based upon a story by William Faulkner; Interview with the Vampire, starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise; and Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, which featured Bette Davis, not to forget Beyonce’s Déjà Vue music video.

Oak Alley Plantation is named for its quarter-milelong avenue lined with ancient oak trees

We wander through its opulent interior, visit the site of what were once 20 slave cabins – some of which are now being rebuilt to lend historic authenticity to the plantation – view at distance the fields where sugar-cane is still being harvested, and chat to a Civil War interpreter dressed in a Confederate uniform.

Then it is off on a short minibus ride to nearby and even-more-fascinating Laura Plantation. Its main house was built in the quite-different Creole style, raised off the ground above a brick cellar, with tall, French doors opening from the wide porch direct into the living accommodation. For four generations it was run by Creole women; several of its original slave cabins are still intact and can be visited; there are three lovely gardens, and we are given more insight into the area’s pre- Civil War lifestyle by the fact that our guide is an African-American woman with roots in the area. Among the things we learn is that the famous Uncle Remus folk stories (featuring B’rer Rabbit, among other animal characters), which are usually attributed to Georgia-based white author, Joel Chandler Harris, actually originated from the West African folk tales told by the slaves here.

Back to the boat in time for Captain John Sutton’s champagne welcome reception, we chat with some of the young entertainers and Steve Weber, assistant hotel manager, who regularly flies in from his home in southern France to work on the cruises. Dinner, show time and then relaxation over drinks in the Main Deck Lounge as we’re entertained by Broadway show tunes from pianist/ singer Phil Westbrook, usually based in Las Vegas.

A sunny Tuesday and we disembark for the enchanting small town of St Francisville, Louisiana, first settled in the 1730s by Spanish monks, who named it after their patron saint, and, later, with Bayou Sara at its base, one of the largest cotton ports on the lower Mississippi. It is now an enchanting architectural assembly that includes a Greek Revival courthouse and Romanesque Revival bungalows. There’s a crafts sale going on in the historic Audubon Market Hall and I can’t resist the jewellery. Also tempting are the great array of vintage buttons and other gifts in the Grandmother’s Buttons shop and more gifts in The Shanty Too, right across Ferdinand Street from the rather-intriguing Historical Society Museum.

In the antebellum days, two-thirds of the known American millionaires lived on the plantations between New Orleans and Natchez, Mississippi, our next port of call, and many of them lived right around here. Oakley Plantation was briefly home to John James Audubon, who produced 32 of his famous bird paintings here, and The Myrtles is reputedly one of the most-haunted homes in America.

Back on board, the programme includes a lecture on Jefferson, Napoleon and the Louisiana Purchase, tall tales about the river by Riverlorian Jerry Hay, and, in the evening, a Tribute to the Great Ladies of Song by singer Laura Sable.

NATCHEZ ATTRACTS SPRING AND AUTUMN PILGRIMAGES

Disembarking the next day at Natchez, I discover that although it numbers only 20,000 residents, it is one of the best-known towns along the river, primarily because its beautiful, antebellum mansions attract spring and autumn ‘pilgrimages’ to the area. Welcomed by southern belles in ornate, hoop-skirt-supported gowns, we tour Rosalie, which, during the Civil War, was commandeered to serve as the Union Army headquarters; Magnolia Hall, built as the residence of a wealthy cotton broker; and elegant Stanton Hall, its grounds occupying an entire city block.

The ornate Longwood Plantation mansion is a Natchez landmark

Of particular interest is the three-storey, red-brick William Johnson House, where exhibits tell the story of its African-American owner, a former slave who became a successful and wealthy local entrepreneur—and a slave owner himself! — only to be assassinated by an envious rival. A peek into the picturesque Eola Hotel, a tasty snack in a local café and then back to reboard The American Queen on a waterfront, now tranquil but, in the 19th century, teaming with saloons, brothels and rowdy riverboat crews.

Back on board the stage has become a World War II US Victory Canteen, where the appropriately-garbed male and female soldiers entertain us with such lyrics as Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me till I come marching home. Then, it’s late-evening drinks and jazz in the Engine Room Bar close to the giant paddlewheel.

Whereas Natchez emerged from the Civil War intact, our next stop, Vicksburg, was subjected to a traumatic, 47-day Union siege during which residents were reduced to eating rodents and sheltering in caves. Meanwhile, about 37,000 soldiers were either killed or wounded in the nearby battle, which was considered a turning point in the war.

Rather than tour the battlefield, I decide to explore the city, starting with the hilltop Old Courthouse Museum, crammed with exhibits and memorabilia of the Old South, followed by visits to the Church of the Holy Trinity, with its six Tiffany, stained-glass windows honouring the Civil War deceased of both the North and South. Then, I make brief stops at the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum, located in a former candy store whose owner first bottled the famous beverage; the Old Depot Museum, which claims to house the world’s largest collection of ship models, including riverboats; and the Lower Mississippi River Museum, which covers everything from the great flood of 1927 to ongoing life along the river.

CARD TRICKS, PATSY CLINE AND HUEY LONG

Back on board, we decide on a lighter meal in the Front Porch Café, briefly watch Riverboat Gambler Bill Wiemuth teach card tricks, and take in both The Memphis Music Story and A Salute to Patsy Cline in the evening. Along the way, I’ve also spent time in the pilot house, chatting with the captain and watching the smoke stacks magically descend as we pass under a low bridge.

Headed back down river, we dock at the Louisiana state capital, Baton Rouge, where, after a savoury Cajun lunch and appropriate music and dancing at rather-touristic Boudin’s, we head for the Louisiana State University Rural Life Museum, which consists of numerous, traditional rural buildings plus a huge, rustic museum filled with agricultural and other memorabilia.

Driving in our minibus past the rather-grand Old Governor’s Mansion, built in 1930 for colourful Louisiana Governor Huey Long, we disembark for a tour of the 27-storey State Capitol, the tallest in the nation. It provides a fascinating insight into the life and politics of Long, a Depression Era ‘Share the Wealth’ folk hero to some, a controversial despot to others. We even view the site where Long, by then a US Senator with presidential aspirations, was fatally wounded by a gunman in 1935, before returning to the boat in our minibus, now accompanied by local jazz musicians, who urge us to sing along to When the Saints Come Marching In.

On our final day, we are scheduled to visit Houmas House, ‘The Crown Jewel of Louisiana’s River Road’, but by now the river level has risen so high that it is impossible for The American Queen to anchor at the plantation dock, so we return early to New Orleans. Some passengers depart the next day for a bus tour back to the plantation or on a Bayou Swamp Tour. I decide instead to spend more time in lovely, old New Orleans … and that’s a whole other story.