Holidays in Nashville

What are the best things to see in Nashville?

This city is brimming with musical delights. If you’re not a lover of country music, you’re bound to change your tune after Nashville’s top sights.

1. The Country Music Hall of Fame is massive and pretty comprehensive. Feel free to take it at pace, but stop to admire the architecture from outside – the windows are configured to look like piano keys and the whole design is roughly based on a bass clef. Nearby is the walk of fame park, where you can walk over Hollywood-style stars on the sidewalk until you spot Jack White and Kings of Leon. As part of your ticket you’ll also have access to a far more intimate site: RCA Studio B.
2. It may not look like much, but RCA Studio B is where Elvis recorded over 200 of his songs, and Dolly Parton wrote ‘Jolene’ and ‘I will always love you’. In the corner are a string of Christmas lights, hung up to help him get in the festive mood for a July recording of some Christmas songs. And there is the ancient piano he would use to warm up and record. Perhaps you’ll get your own flash of inspiration.
3. You can’t miss the Parthenon, situated in Centennial Park. Make this a relaxed walk before lunch, pop in to see the largest indoor statue in the western hemisphere (a big, gold Athena). You can walk all around the park and build up a fine appetite.
4. Be sure to book ahead for a table in the tiny Bluebird Café. This unassuming venue is an intimate performance space for songwriters, where everyone from Taylor Swift to Faith Hill has sung on their way to stardom. Jam into a chair in the packed-out listening room, where the atmosphere will sizzle. Doors close late, and then it’s back to the hotel, humming all the way home.
5. The Ryman Auditorium, birthplace of bluegrass, is worth a tour to hear about the legends that performed here. Originally a tabernacle, and still featuring pew seating, go backstage to the dressing rooms and stand on the stage where Helen Keller, Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields all stood before, and where the Grand Ole Opry once hosted its show – Hank Williams received six encores when he played the venue. The new show is at Opryland, just out of town.
6. Navigate the Honky-Tonks of Nashville on the aptly-named Honky Tonk Highway. There’s an exhausting amount of live music every single night, often multiple bands on multiple floors, and you can shuffle along until you find a crowd and sound you like. Look out for Brazilbilly – as the name suggests, it’s country with a Latino edge, or the giant, lit-up boot that symbolises Robert’s Western World. Pull up a stool.
7. Time to branch out from country and bluegrass. Visit the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum and GRAMMY Gallery. Great for the starstruck, the gallery introduces the GRAMMYs – the music awards (U2 have 22, conductor Georg Solti has 31). There are plenty of interactive exhibitions, film props and instruments. You’ll want to take your time, whether you idolise the piano where Elton John composed, worship at the altar of Roy Orbison’s prescription sunglasses or long for a go on Santana’s Woodstock drum set.
8. The beautiful grounds of the Belle Meade Plantation beckon. A winery, former thoroughbred stables, as well as a historic house. It makes a pleasant afternoon of sipping and strolling, as you learn horse racing and wine tasting from guides who take old fashioned hospitality seriously. They’re even in period dress. This is where Seabiscuit and Secretariat’s great grandsire was raised: trace back the bloodlines of two of the greatest horses in American history to this green pasture.
9. Nashville has a great selection of unusual shops. Yes, there are cowboy boots a plenty, but head to 12 South, a street that’s fast becoming the hippest in town. Reese Witherspoon, a Nashville native, opened Draper James here, purveyor of upmarket dresses in gingham and cotton. Imogene and Willie does a good line of denim, hit White’s Mercantile for tasteful homeware, owned by local singer Holly Williams and a couple of fun vintage stores.
10. Head out to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage. The seventh president of the United States has a driveway that‘s shaped just like a guitar. When you get inside, you’ll discover his fascinating story – fighting the British at thirteen, orphaned at fourteen, raised to rank of general and finally president. He fought for democracy and earned the moniker ‘people’s president’. Visit his garden tomb after a tour of the house.