Nashville Pt.2

  We drove into Nashville on Saturday May 31 for a taste of Country. We have unintentionally taken an American music itinerary on this trip: New Orleans for jazz, Memphis for the blues, and now Nashville for country. Each city has its own distinct sound and feel. In New Orleans Bourbon St. is the happening place but you can listen to some good jazz anywhere in the city. In Memphis Beale St. is crammed full of blues joints. Nashville has Broadway as the main corridor for its music. Parking is tough but we found a garage for only $5 a few blocks from Broadway. Broadway is a wide avenue and is open to traffic unlike Beale St. and Bourbon St.

The first stop was of course the Hard Rock Cafe:

After a few drinks at the bar it was time to explore:

We walked back up Broadway taking in the sights and sounds. You hear music blaring from every other bar you go past.

We walked to the Ryman Auditorium, the old home of the Grand Ole Opry:

It is a magnificent old structure in sharp contrast to the modern buildings around it:

The Bridgestone Arena where the CMA awards are going on as I type this tonight:

After all that walking it was time to take a load off in a nice cool, dark bar:

Some good old boys were strumming:

After a few beers in the Whiskey Bent Saloon it we were getting hungry so we stopped in a barbecue joint that had a band playing. I don't remember the name of the place and for some reason I didn't take a picture of the sign:

And for all you single guys out there Nashville has to be the girl capital of the mid-south. There were packs of three, four, five, and six girls prowling Broadway having a good time. 

BB King has  place in Nashville:

The great thing about Nashville is there are different types of restaurants if you don't want barbecue or fried chicken. There is Italian, Brazilian, Japanese, and others.

Nashville is more urban and perhaps more cosmopolitan than Memphis and New Orleans. I enjoyed it very much and would love to go back if I could stay closer to the action.