Girl In The Pretty Dress

When I was eleven, I discovered Leanne Rimes (thanks to Coyote Ugly) and Country Music became my guilty pleasure. (Believe me, for a teenager in the UK it was not cool, but I fell in love with it anyway.)

I love almost all genres of music, but Country is the clear favourite.

There isn’t much of a country music scene in the UK, so visiting Nashville has been on my bucket list for a very, very long time… and if you can’t do something special for your 30th birthday when can you?? 

We rose bright an early on our fist morning in Nashville (very early in fact – thanks jet lag!) and didn’t waist any time heading Downtown. I have been following Kelsey Montague‘s art on Instagram for ages, and literally stumbled into her famous wings not long after we left the hotel. 

I think this picture accurately sums up my feelings about being in Nashville for the first time…

Why can’t every city have bike stands in the shape of music notes?

After the obligatory walk down Broadway and a spot of boot-browsing, we decided to head for a lunch time treat with live music. 

Yes, it may be a little gimmicky but BB King is a musical legend so how could we not eat here?

We walked off lunch by heading up the hill to look at the State Capitol building.

Which had a great view past the war memorials and across the city.

Not long after this the top end of a hurricane hit Nashville and our afternoon activities were rained off. We retreated to our hotel where the jet lag caught up with us. After a quick snooze, we were refreshed (as was the city) so we headed out to The Station Inn. If you are ever in Nashville and want to hear some of the best live bluegrass go there – the Sunday Night Jam was brilliant. I’m not going to say more than that as it’s really the sort of place you have to experience for yourself.

Day Two dawned almost as bright and early as the first so we headed out to explore some more. 

As the weather had perked up a bit we headed to Centennial Park, which is a beautiful oasis of green in the middle of a very concrete-and-glass city. It also happens to be the home of a full-size and to-scale replica of the Parthenon from Ancient Greece…

For reasons that I still can’t wrap my head around, just over 100 years ago the state of Tennessee decided to spend lots of money it didn’t have, building this in the hopes of attracting visitors and boosting the local economy. It now houses an art gallery which sadly was closed on Mondays.

I’ll be completely honest though, Nashville was a bit of a let down during the day. If you aren’t day-drinking on a bachelorette party and/or don’t like country-music-themed-museums you might be a bit stuck for activities. We spent most of our 2nd day wandering aimlessly and doing a little shopping in 12-South.

Another way to pass time in Nashville is by queuing to get in to this famous place:

The concierge at our hotel warned us that people had been known to queue for up to 7 hours for a show at the Bluebird, but we didn’t want to spend all day sat on a wall so we took a chance and arrived just under 3 hours before the first show. Luckily we timed it just right and made it into the singer-songwriter showcase that evening. (Side note – since mu visit, the Bluebird has now started to allow online booking for some shows to eliminate the queues. More info here.)

So that’s another item I can cross off my bucket list!