To celebrate our milestone anniversary, we decided to visit Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville has been on my bucket list forever. Nashville & Tennessee reminds you of country music, bourbon, river boats and much more.. 

We landed in Nashville on Tuesday evening, after a short 2 hour flight from Newark airport. We took an Uber from  Nashville International Airport to our hotel located in the Lower Broadway area. We settled into our hotel and soon headed out to checkout the bars at Music Row.. literally a 5 min walk from our hotel. 

Nashville formed in 1843, sits on the banks of the Cumberland River in the north-central part of the State of Tennessee. It started out as a port town and a lot trade was conducted on the river. It also had good railway network critical for trade. Rapid development took place after the Civil War ended. It became a huge education center with the establishment of the Vanderbilt and Fisk Universities. It earned the moniker “ Athens of the South”. The establishment of the WSM Radio which became the Grand Ole Opry in 1925 put Nashville on the music map and the transformation to Music City.  More on this later. 

Music Row is considered the beating heart of Nashville’s music business and entertainment industry. In 1957, RCA opened their studio here and soon it was followed by all the other big labels. There are several well known dive bars with live music on Music Row (dive bars are bars that have a relaxed atmosphere, cheap drinks and live music). We had a couple of bars on our list – Loser’s and Stillery.  Losers had a huge “parking lot” concert going on… lots of young folks in jeans and cowboy hats drinking and “chillin” while young country music singers were performing on stage. Our next stop was Stillery literally across the street. This was a much more sober affair and a smaller setting. We ordered our drinks & dinner and settled in. We were ready to enjoy the singers on stage strumming their guitars and singing their ballads. It was a nice relaxed end to Day 1 in Music City. 

We had a lot planned for Day 2. The day started with breakfast.. sweet sweet breakfast. Yes, we had Nashville’s famous layered donuts (combination of a croissant and donuts) from Parlor Donuts. We had some of the softest, sweetest and yummiest donuts. I had my sugar fill for the week.

After breakfast we headed out to the Centennial Park and the Parthenon. It was very short Lyft ride from our hotel. The Centennial Park is a large urban green space located in the middle of the city. It houses the famous Parthenon, a full scale replica of Athenian original. It has a full scale replica of the statue of Athena which we could not see as the museum was under renovation. I am sure many of you are wondering why do they have a Parthenon in Nashville !! I did too.. Well, it was built in 1897 as a part of the centennial celebration of Nashville because the city was known as the Athens of the South. It was meant to be a temporary structure but became a permanent structure in 1920 because it was loved by the locals. The museum ( which we could not visit) covers the impact of the ancient Greeks on American civilization. It’s definitely worth a visit. There’s a nice self guided audio tour that gives you a good history lesson as you walk through the Parthenon and the museum. 

Next stop was the famous Ryman Auditorium in Downtown. a short Uber ride brought us to Nashville downtown. It was bustling with action, lots of tourists and several music bars lined up on both sides of the street. Ryman is the on the top of the must see places in Nashville. Lots of history here and a very interesting story about the place. I will give you all an abridged version- Ryman was a very successful riverboat operator. He built a church ( it was initially called the Union Gospel Tabernacle) to serve the cause of the faith after Ryman was greatly influenced by a pastor. The church hosted theatre, gospel and performances by many music and dance companies. It was renamed Ryman Auditorium after Ryman’s death in 1904. The Grand Ole Opry ( longest running live radio broadcast in US history and the most famous stage for country music) moved into the Ryman Auditorium in 1943. It is also known as the “Mother Church of Country Music”.  Much credit of the transformation goes to Lula Naff a manager who worked tirelessly to bring famous musicians to perform here. The exhibit covers a display of all the famous singers / musicians / bands who played at Ryman. It is very very impressive. There is also a 20 min audio visual on the story of the Auditorium which is very nicely done.

Next stop was Country Music Hall of Fame. It was close by…. a 10 min walk from Ryman. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, first opened in 1967 on Music Row and moved to Downtown Nashville in 2001. It is often called the “Smithsonian of country music”. It has an exhaustive collection of historically important artifacts related to country music. We did not visit the museum, but spent time in the atrium which was quite uniquely designed. It has a very tall, vaulted ceiling with lots of natural light pouring in through large skylights. A large rotunda features the Hall of Fame with plaques of inductees lining the walls. After taking all of this in, we had a relaxed lunch at the cafeteria. 

We had tickets for the Cumberland River Cruise in the evening for 4.30 pm. After a short uber ride with several delays & detours, we made it to the dock, well… almost made it in time. When we got to the dock we were told that all cruises are cancelled for next 3-4 days due to the CMA music festival. That was a huge bummer… we were looking forward to the riverboat cruise. Since we were already in downtown, we decided to check out a few of the famous bars or honky tonks as they are called here. A honky tonk is a small bar or pub with live country music, dancing and in general a very casual vibe. There are quite a few honky tonks on Broadway, (also called “Honky Tonk Highway”). We went to the Whiskey River Salon, Legends, a couple more. It is actually quite amazing to see so many bars next to each other and all of them live music. Quite a unique experience.  We decided to call it a day after a few bars and several drinks. We had a busy day planned for Day 3. Also, downtown was beginning to get very crowded with thousands of folks pouring in for the CMA festival and all the free concerts. 

Day 3 was our visit to the Jack Daniel’s distillery in Lynchburg (about 90 min drive from our hotel). We picked up our rental car close to the hotel and started our drive to Lynchburg around 10 am. After an uneventful drive, we arrived at the JD distillery in Lynchburg. We checked in at the Visitors Center at got our tickets for the 12.10 tour. It’s about 2 hours for the tour and the highlight is the whiskey sampling at the end. The visitors center is a southern style mansion and has a huge statue of Mr. Jack Daniel ( full name is Jasper Newton Daniel). It had several photos, memorabilia and displays about Jack, his buddy “Nearest” Green. Story of Jack Daniel is quite interesting.. Jack had a troubled childhood, ran away from home and lived with a farmer who also made whiskey. Jack, still a kid, became very close to the master distiller , you guessed it.. Nathan Green (an African American) who taught Jack everything about making Whiskey. Jack left the farm after a few years, raised money, bought the Still and hired Green.. that was the beginning of what is now the Jack Daniel’s distillery. He and Green made this massive business, perfecting the whiskey and expanding the distillery. 

We had a really good guide who walked us through the distillery, explained the manufacturing process and finally brought us to the tasting room. The moment we were all waiting…. learning how to drink Tennessee Whiskey.. we tasted samples of 6 Jack Daniel’s whiskeys – starting with the world famous No.7 and Gentleman Jack. Needless to say, we were longing for more “lessons”, but we were reminded that it is a dry town (and we had to drive back to Nashville). After a quick lunch and the mandatory visit to the gift shop in historic Lynchburg, we started our drive back to Nashville. We were back in our hotel and had a quiet South Indian dinner at Woodlands. A few stats and interesting facts about JD 

• They make over 120 million bottles of whiskey/year
• Have over 500 employees.. 5th generation of Jack and Green continue to work at the distillery 
• Own 3000 acres in Moore county, 
• Make their own coal at the distillery (JD is charcoal distilled whiskey), 
• They have custom made  barrels which are used only once, there’s a huge aftermarket for the used barrels (used for making wine, beer and scotch)
• Moore county is dry (no alcohol sold) and we are allowed to taste whiskey at the distillery since it is for“educational” purpose
• All JD employees get a free bottle of JD every month ❤️

Day 4 was a chilled out day for us…. We went to the Grand Ole Opry, took a few pictures outside. We decided not to do the tour. The Opry has a lot of history and is the reason Nashville became the Music City. It is the home of the WSM radio station ( the longest running radio show). It started in 1925 to serve folks in the South who could not get the radio signal from Chicago. By 1939, it’s 50K watt signal could be heard across 30 States and became national on NBC. It moved into the Ryman Auditorium for a few years and in 1974 moves to its Grand Ole Opry house (capacity – 4.4K) in Opryland. Fun fact: they cut out a 6 foot circle of wood from Ryman and embedded it at the center of the stage. In addition to being the longest running radio show in the US, it hosts several live shows as well. It has become one of the most prestigious auditorium in the USA. 

The Opryland area has a huge mall and lots of other attractions nearby including a Madame Tussaud’s museum. We decided to check out the Garden Conservatory at the nearby Gaylord Resort. 

For our final evening in Nashville we had a special event planned. We got tickets to a show at the famous Bluebird Cafe. It’s an unassuming cafe that captures Nashville’s true spirit. This is a songwriters club where songwriters and up  & coming country music singers perform. It’s a very small restaurant seating 80-90 people and an intimate setting. Famous singers like Garth Brooks, Keith Urban and Taylor Swift were discovered here. For our show, famous songwriter Tony Arata, harmonist “Jelly Roll” and a couple of country music singers were on the program. It was a fantastic experience. We enjoyed the singing, the stories and all the fun moments. The food was good too… Highly recommend if you are a music buff.

That rounded up our visit to Music City and the land of Jack Daniel’s. We were on an early morning flight back to NJ. We had a blast… an absolutely lovely time.

If you love music and generally like having a good time, Nashville is the place to visit. Check it out…