Nashville Travel Guide Part One
Nashville has become one of the hottest travel destinations in the United States. I lived there in the 1980s and am always amazed at the change. To ring in the 2019 New Year, the wife and I headed for Nashville. This is our Nashville Travel Guide.
Jump Ahead To
Overview
Nashville is a party city. Booze and music top the list of attractions. However, do not get the impression that Nashville is all about country music and beer drinking. Locals are quick to point out that the number industry in Nashville is health care.
Of course, like most visitors we focused on having fun. Being older, our main indulgence was food. Nashville has many unique restaurants. This includes the massive theme restaurants in the downtown district near Broadway.
Our guide is focused on our 3-night stay at the start of 2019. However, we also include some insights from our previous visits. There are even a few places that I remember from my time at Vanderbilt University from 1983 to 1985.
Day One
We took an early morning flight on Sunday December 30. Through Hotwire we had booked the Hilton Nashville Downtownfor $166 a night. This was actually a great deal as prime Nashville hotels are expensive. See our guide to getting deals on Hotwire. The Hilton is arguably the best located hotel in downtown. It is a block off the action on Broadway and overlooks Music City Hall of Fame Park and the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Downtown was packed and our hotel room was not ready. The Indianapolis Colts were in town to play the Tennessee Titans in a key matchup. The winner would go to the playoffs. The Titans play in Nissan Stadium which is across the Cumberland River in Downtown. For lunch we decided to try one of the massive restaurants along Broadway. These are restaurants that are spread across several floors. They usually have live music and, in several cases, a different menu on each floor.
When we were in Nashville in 2016 with the kids, one of the hot new places was Acme Feed & Seed. This 4-story behemoth sits right across the river from the stadium. However, it was too busy, so we went to the new next door restaurant Nashville Underground.
The is another 4-story restaurant/entertainment venue. It is also 4-stories and has a total of 40,000 square. The Sunday we were there they had some crazy cocktail brunch and they were doing a live broadcast of a Tennessee Titans radio show.
Nashville Underground features some Nashville classic including hot chicken and meat and three. I was planning on getting hot chicken at Hattie B’s, so I picked this place to check off meat and three.
Meat and three is a classic of casual southern restaurants. You pick your meat and three sides/vegetables. I picked country fried steak, collard greens, mashed potatoes and beans. One thing I noted was that at $10 this was much cheaper than what you would get at a similar restaurant in San Diego’s downtown equivalent of Broadway, the Gaslamp District.
For more on our dining experiences see our guide to eating in Nashville.
After lunch we walked around Nashville. This included walking by the Ryman Auditorium. This used to be the location of the famed Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974. When I lived in Nashville in the 1980s they were thinking of tearing it down.
The Ryman has now been restored and is both a prime music venue and a tourist attraction. Tours of the Ryman are offered. There are many music tours to take in Nashville. The Ryman tour was a hefty $25 so we decided to pass. However, we noted the Ryman tours are highly rated so maybe next time.
We returned to the Hilton only to find our room still wasn’t ready. The lobby was packed with guests in a similar boat. It appears that most weekend guests had checked out and a new round of Indianapolis Colt fans and the New Year’s Eve crowd were all trying to check in at the same time.
We had to wait in the lobby for nearly an hour. The Hilton did right by us and gave us a $50 credit and a free buffet breakfast for 2.
For dinner we picked Martin’s BBQ down the street on the other side of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Nashville is not noted as a BBQ town, but the fairly new Martin’s has received raves for its whole hog BBQ.
Martin’s was also hosting a live music event on its roof with several bands. In grand Nashville tradition, this place is huge. We sat by the bar area, ate BBQ, listened to music, and watched the Tennessee Titans playoff hopes be dashed by the Colts.Toward the end of the evening it started pouring rain. Martin’s rooftop had a cover, but the rain was more than it could handle. Over the next few days we handled plenty of rain. However, even with rain late December/early January Tennessee weather made a nice change of pace for us San Diego folk.
Day Two
The next day was New Year’s Eve. We had a busy schedule, including a New Year’s Eve show an hour and a half down the road.
The Hilton gave us a free breakfast buffet for yesterday’s inconvenience. Of course, we took advantage of this deal as it was normally $30 a person. Normally we would have found a local breakfast spot.
Our first stop was across the street at the Country Music Hall of Fame. The basic admission to the museum is $26. We found it was well worth it and spent about two hours here. You can see our complete guide for more information.
We checked out of our hotel and hit the road. However, before leaving town we wanted to check out the holiday display at the massive Gaylord Opryland Resort. We had been to the Gaylord in Washington, D.C. during the holidays and know they put on an impressive show.
The Gaylord Opryland is a tourist attraction in its own right, especially during the holidays. The place is huge and inside their all kinds of gardens and Christmas lights. You can see our complete guide.
Parking at the Gaylord Opryland resort costs $25. Even though it was raining we decided to park next door for free at the Opry Mills Mall. I have mixed feelings about this mall because, to build it, they tore down one of my favorite childhood places, the Opryland Amusement Park. In hindsight this was a bad decision (according to this article), but at least it gave us free parking.
We spent well over an hour at Gaylord Opryland. The resort has plenty of restaurants, but we decided to walk across the parking lot to the mall for a lower cost alternative. We also walked by the current (since 1974) Grand Ole Opry which sits right outside the mall. I remember part of admission to Opryland theme park included a tour of the Grand Ole Opry.
The wife had been eyeing German food and we noted that Opry Mills had a big German food hall, the Bavarian Bierhaus. This was a huge place with life music and picnic table seating. It was about 3 pm so it wasn’t too crowded, but the atmosphere was still lively.
After our late lunch we hit the road for Manchester, Tennessee. Manchester was our hotel for the evening, but our main destination was a cave in an isolated area of Tennessee about an hour from Chattanooga.
The cave had just opened a few months before as a music venue, The Caverns. We were here to see the legendary band the Flaming Lips welcome in the New Year.
The next two days would take us to Chattanooga and into Georgia. On January 3 we would head back to Nashville for part two of our Nashville Travel Guide.
Places on Our Trip
Here are the places we visited on our first two days in Nashville. They all come recommended.
Nashville Underground: Huge multi-story restaurant/music venue
Acme Feed & Seed: Huge multi-story restaurant/ music venue next to Nashville Underground. We visited on an earlier trip.
Hilton Nashville Downtown: Our hotel
Martin’s BBQ: Excellent whole hog BBQ and music in downtown Nashville
Country Music Hall of Fame: Large museum on the history of country music
Gaylord Opryland: Huge resort with water park, gardens and Christmas display.
Bavarian Bierhaus: Large German food hall in Opryland Mall
The Caverns: Music venue in a cave in the middle of Tennessee.
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