We arrived in Nashville just after dark. It was Friday night and "the joint was jumpin’.
We stayed at the Hotel Indigo, just around the corner from Printer’s Alley, the historic center of Nashville’s music scene.
There were herds of young women traveling in packs, dressed to the nines. It turns out that Nashville is where Southern gals have their bachelorette party.
During our time in Nashville it was a rare moment that we did not have a live musician somewhere in the background. In every restaurant, bar, convenience store, mall, open green space, and even the breakfast buffet at our hotel, live musicians were performing, each hoping to make it big in Nashville. Some of these performers had been contestants on early episodes of The Voice or American Idol.
Saturday morning we rented bikes early hoping to beat the heat. We saw the original Grand Ole Opry, Ryman Auditorium.
Riding a little ways out of town we stopped at the Union Station Hotel. It is still a functioning hotel. Rooms open directly into the lobby.
From there we pushed on to Centennial Park. We were no longer beating the heat by the time we got to Centennial Park. What I had wanted to see was the reproduction of the Parthenon, but unlike that old broken down one in Greece this one is in mint condition, though built of concrete.
When we went inside peeking through the pillars we saw the giant statue of Athena.
Athena has not appeared in the Athens Parthenon for a couple millennia. I guess she moved here to make it into the music business.
The Elgin Marbles are here too.
Outside we competed with the dog for some shade and watched some actually very good bands who were performing adjacent to the Parthenon. Remembering the end of Robert Altman's movie Nashville, which ended tragically at a concert in this location, we decided it was time to head back into town.
We left our rental bikes at the park and took a Lyft back to the hotel. Our driver played his CD for us. We tried to catch a brief nap before the evening’s big activity, the Grand Ole Opry.
We went to the Grand Old Opry because we were in Nashville and that’s what you do when you are visiting Nashville. I felt like I had gotten someone else bucket list but, truth be told we had a great time. A variety show, divided into four half hour segments, no one act was on stage long enough to get too annoying and production values are high. Slick and sentimental, there was a lot of songs and talk about departed family, and as the next day was father’s day, we heard a lot about good old tough, but loving dad. There was one young man, who had been raised as a foster child, who sang well about how his father was gone but he always knew he had a loving protecter who loved him “this much” and stretched arms out in a crucifixion poise. I poked John, who needed to stifle his laugh, as the lady next to us whipped away a tear. It’s snobs like us that give Yankees a bad name down her
