Nashville the Music City
To get to Nashville we needed to
retrace our steps (wake) back to Florence where we could rent a car
to drive there. We with 10 other boats headed to the Joe Wheeler Lock
at 8.30 & locked through about 9.am. This was surprisingly quick
– the lockmaster had agreed to put us ahead of a large tow if we
could all get there by 8.30am. Some went south down the TenTom
waterway & others of us arrived at Florence and at the magic hour
of 5 o'clock had the obligatory docktails with old friends already
there.
We drove north next morning on lovely,
clean, wide roads lined with fields of round haybales and trees
changing colour. Tennessee is a very pretty, tidy state.There were
many small towns with lawn cemetries full of flowers & stone
masons which gave the impression of continual cemetries every 5 or so
miles. We drove near Davy Crockett State Park & through Amish
country passing some horse & buggies on the road. Most front
lawns are decorated for halloween with large pumpkins, scarecrows &
yellow, red & orange chrysanthenums.
We arrived in Nashville, parked, sought
out the visitors centre, grabbed some maps & went looking for
some accommodation. Everything close to down town appeared to be full
& consequently getting up close to the $300 mark. (There was a
convention on – so the story goes). We had picked up a basic
looking flyer for a hotel @ $129 + plus parking & this was
becoming more attractive even though there was no photo of it or any
indication as to where it may be. We phoned & found that it was
within walking distance of “Broadway Street” which is where all
bars have the live music happening. It was The Capitol Hotel corner
of Union & 7th Street. It was a real find –
breakfast included, a bistro & bar, rooms as good as any up
market ones we've stayed in, valet service & within walking
distance of all the attractions. We really enjoyed wandering the
streets & popping into the various bars to hear a wide variety of
music – not just country & western. We did enjoy the fiddle &
banjo playing at The Blue Moon Saloon, & the O'Donnells – a duo
at Rippy's. Most of these bars have no cover charge.
We saw the impressive State Capitol
building when we opened up the curtains the next morning & after
breakfast visited the War Memorial Museum & Tennessee State
Museum. In the afternoon we visited the Country Music Hall of Fame.
This was very impressive -covering country & western from it's
beginnings, with old movie footage, clothing & music. There was a
special exhibit detailing contributions & collaborations of
Johnnie Cash & Bob Dylan – a seemingly unlikely mix but
apparently all artists seem to get together at some stage in their
careers to record or play together in Nashville. We also strolled
through Printers Alley – a blues area more like New Orleans. We
found the “music street” was less crowded, cleaner, less pushy,
the bars more inviting and friendlier than New Orleans although we
did enjoy the music there. That night we wandered the streets again &
ended up on a patio on The Tin Roof giving us a great view of
Broadway street & more live music. We could have easily spent
more days there.
Next morning we drove out to the Grand
Ole Opry. This was an impressive building & area but a few miles
out of town. We didn't get to a show – they are only on 3 nights a
week & you need to book in advance & we would have got lost
driving out there at night (we did in the day time). We were happy
with all the music we had heard in the previous nights in down town
Nashville.
Close by the Opry was a Bass Pro Shop
and Outdoor World, WOW, they could almost charge an admission fee
just to look at the wildlife exhibits and the Aquarium. They had
every freshwater fishing tool known to man, plus a huge range of
hunting gear,tramping equipment, boats, motors etc. A good range of
clothing and footwear was available all at very reasonable prices.
No guessing that we ( Colin) spent a lot of time, and some US dollars
before we left.
No comments:
Post a Comment