Nashville

Music City

After our intensive weekend in St Louis, we took it easy in Nashville, the Music City, mostly known for its rich country music history. On our first day, we wandered around downtown Nashville, enjoying the live music at the many bars on Broadway. We stopped at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge for some nice honky tonk music. Even though the live music was fun, we will never become big country music fans...

We also had a quick look inside the Ryman's Auditorium which started out as a preaching church but was later transformed to the Mother Church of Country Music. As of the 1940's, this was the home of the radio show "Grand Ole Opry" where many country stars perform (and still perform today albeit from a different location).

A visit to the Belle Meade Plantation showed us a different side of Nashville. This plantation is very famous for its thoroughbred horses, one of which supposedly the ancestor of 70 procent of today's thoroughbred horses. Again, we were torn between the beauty and glamor of the mansion and the cruel and horrible way slaves were treated.

One other very memorable moment, was our visit to the Parthenon. No, we didn't suffer from a heatstroke, we actually did visit the Parthenon in Nashville... For Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition, the city built a real size replica of Athens' Parthenon.