An early morning four hour flight from Los Angeles had us arriving at Nashville International Airport mid afternoon to 38 degree c temps. And so it remained that temp for the next four weeks.
We’d pre booked an apartment just on the outskirts of downtown Nashville within easy walking distance to lots of sites. The apartment was in a high rise block and was brand new. Actually finding the entrance to the apartment complex was a challenge especially when our Uber driver dropped us on the road below the overpass where the entrance is.
Then we had a battle with no reception staff and electronic key boxes. Well that’s fun.
But ! When we entered our 14th floor home away from home we had floor to ceiling views of Nashville – especially impressive in the night time.
With a population of 675,000, Nashville is the Capital of Tennessee and it’s a very walkable city. Despite the heat. Ok, enough about the heat. You get it.
We set off for a leisurely walk towards Broadway, the downtown part of Nashville where all of the amazing music houses, Honky stinks bars and restaurants live. Even in the daylight hours it’s an impressive site.
This legendary Country Music capital reeks of talent – on any corner some future superstar musician is plying held or her trade to an appreciative audience.
Home to “The Grand Ol’ Opry”, the Country Music Hall of fame, the Johnny and June Cash Museum, the Vanderbilt University which specialises in music, The Ryman Auditorium and our favourite the Musicians Hall of fame just to mention a few.
You could spend days exploring these brilliances curated works.
At night Broadway becomes a mad house. If there are 675,000 live in Nashville, I reckon there were a million people on Broadway after 8pm.
The neon signs beckoning you inside to hear spectacular music performances all for free is a sight to see.
The police close the road for one kilometre to allow the crowd to meander from music house to music house. And it’s insane.
Try as we might, it was difficult to get into a bar and find a seat.
Until we ventured off Broadway to Printers Alley – the original home to Nashville Honky Tonks from way back when – what a place. We were easily able to wander in and out of bars and sit and listen to some brilliant music.
We ended up in one place called Alley Tins, found a table near the “stage” and sat for 3 or 4 hours being thoroughly entertained by a fabulous band playing all types of music with a country spin. Brilliant.
After a fantastic but late night, we wandered off to the local Farmers and Craft markets which was celebrating their “Watermelon Festival” revealing way too many options of consuming my favourite fruit.
The craft markets were filled with local musicians, artists, sculptors and creators selling unique and one off creations.
We bought some stuff 😬 and some of it now hangs proudly in our house.
Refreshing and freshly made lemonade was a welcome way to recharge before we headed to the Musicians Hall of Fame.
Unlike the Country music equivalents in town, this museum is a collection of all things music and acknowledging the importance of different styles and genres across the ages.
Brilliant exhibits from Johnny Cash, Glenn Campbell, Brice Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Elton John – the list goes on acknowledging the important contributions each artist(s) made.
An hour became four and could have been another couple of hours. Awesome.
The USA has long been the innovator of the craft brewing scene. And it struck me when we arrived in Nashville that every time you turn around there’s another craft brewery right there just inviting you inside.
I have lots of will power. But zero won’t power so every I citation was accepted. Gratefully.
This was our first venture and we came back several times during our stay. The beers were fabulous, the food awesome and service impeccable.
And so it was across the next 5 weeks of our trip. Never a bad craft brewery experience and some were “wild” the way they are set up. We can learn a lot from them.
Nashville was a hotbed of civil unrest during the late 1800s right through until the mid 1900s.
Across the South they love their murals and Nashville is no different. In one corner of town is a series of murals dedicated to the suffragettes dedicated to agitate the Government to allow women the right to vote. This was achieved in 1920 when the Constitution was amended to reflect this long overdue change.
Frankie Pierce was the driving force behind this change and she will be forever remembered for her stance.
We jumped on a Hop On Hop Off Trolley bus and wandered around the outskirts of town visiting original recording studios of RCA and other music legend houses and ended up at the Vanderbilt University that has an entire wing dedicated to music.
We found the specialty area of “The Gallery of Iconic Guitars”
Wow.
For the princely entry fee of $6 we had a personal guided tour by one of the current students who walked us through this time line of some of the most influential guitars in the history of music that have been donated to the University – then !! He grabbed a few and played them for us !
Guitars owned and played by Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Brice Springsteen, Jose Feliciano …. What an experience.
Nashville is quite a pretty town down around Broadway and in the ‘burbs where the mighty Cumberland River meanders for over 1100kms north and south.
It’s a great town, much busier than I expected and we were able to fill in four days really easily.
Loved it.
Ralph and Karen's Tours 