Nashville
Trip Start
Apr 15, 2008
1
14
59
Trip End
Apr 01, 2010
Nashville,
Tennessee,
United States
Monday, July 7, 2008
Think of any classic story song, one that has you laughing out loud or crying in your beer, and there's a good chance it came from Nashville. Most bars and restaurants feature live music, and it's often a sole singer with nothing but a great voice and an acoustic guitar.
Happy Birthday Julie 4th July, "American Independence Day"
Loveless Café - A true American country style roadhouse, situated amongst the forested hills of Tennessee. Julie chose this restaurant for her birthday lunch. It is famous around these parts for serving good local food from scratch, all ingredients are grown or raised locally. It has featured on numerous American TV shows as well as being frequented by many famous people
Fireworks
. Unfortunately there were none in today, well apart from us! The restaurant serves up biscuits (these are more like our plain scones) and home made preserves. The recipe is a guarded secret handed down since the place opened in the 40's. The strange thing is they serve these to you pre your meal!? We ate a couple which were delicious and then saved the rest for our afternoon tea! Julie tried the local Catfish which was seasoned in southern spices and served with caramelised sweet potato, and Hush Puppies (Savoury corn meal and spring onion balls) she said it was delicious. I went for the home-made meatloaf with fresh and spicy tomato sauce, turnip greens with liquor and peppered mashed potatoes, hearty and filling. Riverfront Park Independence Day Concert and Firework Display - Wow do the American's know how to put on a party or what!? We managed to secure a tight spot to the left of the stage, a great viewing area considering there were 1000's of spectators. The only downside was we were on a steep bank and spent the evening sliding down and repositioning ourselves! We have to say they had some great country acts on, as well as the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra who were amazing. The show was finished off by an awesome fireworks display, and believe me this is the right word. The display went on for 45 minutes and there were hundreds in the sky at any given time, they really were spectacular
Grand Ole Opry
. As you can imagine trying to drive back out of the centre of the city was somewhat challenging. We had only just arrived so were not familiar with the road system. The roads were jammed, it was dark, which was bad enough and then suddenly nature put on her own firework display by way of forked lightening accompanied by the most torrential rain fall. The wipers were on as fast as they could go and the roads were like torrents. Given we were on a 10 lane highway and I couldn't see any of the marking for the lanes, suddenly we weren't quite so chilled out! Anyway we did manage to get back to the hotel safely but not before circumnavigating the city a few times!The Grand Ole Opry - This is a 4400 seat theatre, The Hall of fame for Country singing. The Grade Ole Opry has had several homes but this is the largest and latest. Our hotel was located only a couple of miles from this so we were able to walk here through the mega hotel grounds of the 2881 roomed Opryland Hotel. On Saturday nights throughout the summer they hold a live open air concert on the Opry Plaza where the country stars come out from the Opry House and do a few hours of their latest hits. Tonight we listened to Matt Jenkins and the amazing voice of Elizabeth Cook. We had a really pleasant evening sitting under the Maple Trees in the shade, it stays well into the 80's in the evening out here so it still best to get some shade cover until after dark.
