From Greenville Mid-Delta Airport in Greenville, the surrounding region opens up quickly, with blues towns, catfish ponds, and the Mississippi River levee all within easy reach. Greenville is the largest city in the Mississippi Delta, a river port with a long history of music, literature, and hot tamales. The downtown has a worn, soulful character, the levee runs right along it, and the flat fields outside town stretch to the horizon.

Things to do around Greenville: - Eat hot tamales at Doe's Eat Place, a Delta institution since 1941 - Come in October for the Delta Hot Tamale Festival downtown - Walk the Winterville Mounds, a Native American ceremonial site north of town - Learn about the 1927 flood at the museum by the levee - See art and performances at the E.E. Bass Cultural Arts Center - Follow the Mississippi Blues Trail markers around the city - Attend the Delta Blues and Heritage Festival each September, one of the oldest blues festivals in the country - Fish or boat on Lake Washington south of town

Leland, 15 minutes east of Greenville, has the Highway 61 Blues Museum and a small tribute to Jim Henson, who grew up there. Indianola and the B.B. King Museum are half an hour, Cleveland and the Grammy Museum Mississippi are 40 minutes, and Belzoni, the catfish capital, is under an hour. Clarksdale and Vicksburg each sit at the far edge of ninety minutes. Order the fried catfish, drive the back roads past the cotton fields, and listen for live music on a weekend night. Greenville is the Delta without the polish, and that is the appeal.