Nashville, TN (June 16-21, 2012)

Hal had an accounting conference in Nashville and since neither he nor Diane had ever been to Nashville, we took some extra days to visit the city.  Diane had more time to explore as Hal was in class sessions for four days.

The Nashville skyline from across the river.

 

At the right is the Renaissance Hotel where the conference was held.  Above is a shot of the downtown area.  Notice the older church in the bottom right corner - we'll have more on it later.  The tall building across from it was designed to match the style of the church.

Nashville is called the Music City.  Even the
carpets in the hotel reflected the theme!

Contrasts!  With the picture above and to the right you can see the skyscrapers overshadowing Broadway Street - home of the Honky Tonks and music.  Below is Broadway at night when things get very crowded.

Some people referred to Nashville as Nash Vegas, but to us it more resembled New Orleans with the Honky Tonks and music being played day and night.  Groups will often play a 2-4 hour shift and then another group will take over.  Some of the Honky Tonks have a cover charge, while others do not.  At night the number of cover charges tend to increase.

Part of the ambiance of Broadway.  The traveling bar above is fueled by pedal power of those sitting at the bar.  At the right is a hillbilly group performing for tips on the street.  They always seemed to have a crowd.  The lady on the left is using spoons for her instrument.

                                                                                On the left is a large guitar on the corner near the Legends Corner on Broadway.

World Famous, according to the sign in the window, Tootsies is on Broadway.

We caught Ashlee Thomas' act on Monday night.  We've known Ashlee since she was a little girl growing up in our neighborhood.  She's been in Nashville for five years and travels around the US performing.

Even our hotel towered over Broadway Street!

This is 2nd Ave which connects on the south end with Broadway and the Honky Tonks continue on this street for a couple of blocks.

A night view of the Shelby Street Bridge over the river at the corner of Broadway and 2nd Ave.  It's now been converted to a pedestrian bridge as shown by the day shot below.

Also, across the river and just north of the Shelby St. Bridge is the home of the NFL Tennessee Titans.

This is the Hermitage Hotel in downtown Nashville near the State Capitol.  It is a very exclusive hotel with some rooms running $3,000 per night.  History was made here as detailed by the plaque below.  The hotel reminded us of the old Hotel Utah before it was converted from a hotel.

A view from one side of the State Capitol.

The front of the Country Music Hall of Fame.  Notice that the placement of the windows along the front represents the black keys on a keyboard with the grey granite representing the white keys.

We could do a whole blog on just the Country Music Hall of Fame.  It was very interesting to follow the history and to see and hear the evolution of country music.  Here are a couple of pictures of interesting instruments above and costumes at the left.  (Note that these were taken through glass so there is a glare and reflection.)  There is currently a section on Bakersfield, CA at the museum - we weren't aware of how much country music came out of Bakersfield.

Hermitage - Home of President Andrew Jackson

 

The family cemetery.  President Jackson is buried under the rotunda in the left rear.  The plaque marking his burial site is shown to the right.

The smokehouse on the Jackson plantation.

Here are some pictures of the Bel Meade Mansion and grounds located on the southwest side of Nashville.

The kitchen for the mansion.  Due to worries over fires, the kitchens were in separate detached buildings from mansions such as Bel Meade.

Housing for the slaves

The outside of a smokehouse.

In the second photograph to start this blog we mentioned the little church being dwarfed by the new skyscrapers. Here is a view from the front of the church as well as a plaque reviewing its history.

Other churches in the area.  There were a lot of churches we could see from our hotel window.

This was the Customs House

 A pretty impressive public school building that is more than 150 years old.

Above, with inside views to the left and below is Union Station.  It still is a train station, but also serves as a very nice hotel.  The staircase below is very impressive!

Due to the length of this blog we are going to show visits to the Ryman Center (old home to the Grand Ole Opry), the new Grand Ole Opry and Opry Land in a separate blog.