We were both able to take that Friday off to have an extra day of fun. Nashville has been on our list for awhile, and we love going somewhere that neither of us has been before. :)
We left pretty early Friday morning but couldn't figure out why our GPS kept saying we would arrive much earlier than planned. Just a little thing called "time zones"...oops! Still, we enjoyed the drive through Chattanooga and up into Tennessee. Instead of going straight to Nashville, we actually stopped in Lynchburg for lunch and a tour of the Jack Daniel's distillery.
Downtown Lynchburg (well, Lynchburg in its entirety) was teeny tiny. There is a boarding house that's supposed to be great for lunch nearby, but they only had two lunch seating times -- neither of which worked with our schedule. Instead, we had meat-and-three at the Iron Kettle.
Let's just say I don't think they'll be winning any culinary awards any time soon, but we were fed and entertained. :) Next we went over to the distillery to get in line for a tour. It was free!
We had a great guide and really enjoyed the entire tour. You weren't allowed to take pictures inside any of the production buildings, but it was all really interesting. We learned about how they make their own charcoal, their fermenting and filtering processes, and all kinds of other fascinating tidbits.
The tour ended with complimentary lemonade, and we just kept saying that we couldn't believe the whole experience was free! They do have a tasting tour for $10 or $15, but I'm personally not a fan of whiskey anyway. (Sorry, Jack!) Lynchburg is ironically in a dry county, but we did get this picture -- which the tour guide said was everyone's chance to "get a free shot of Jack on the rocks." ;)
After the tour, we got back on the road to make the rest of the trip to Nashville. We stayed at the Hilton downtown, which we eventually got to after "calmly" navigating extensive roadwork and unexpectedly one-way streets. :)
We had a great view from our room! We could see the Bridgestone Arena, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Symphony, and more.
Since we got into town in the late afternoon, we didn't have many plans other than to unpack and explore a little before dinner. Our hotel was just a block from Broadway, which is where all the action is! We walked up and down the street before heading to dinner at Merchants.
Andrew picked Merchants, and we were definitely not disappointed! I'd had my eye on the 72-hour short rib on the menu for a week before we even got there. :) He needed a little longer to look at the menu.
Our meal was deeelicious, and our server was great too. He even guessed which dessert we were going to order! (Chocolate bread pudding, FYI.) Perfect start to our time in Nashville!
We were honestly pretty tired after our day of traveling, so instead of actually going to one of the live music venues, we just took another walk up and down Broadway. You can hear all the music from outside anyway!
Saturday was definitely our "tourist" day. We had breakfast at the hotel before walking across the street to the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum. I have always been a country fan, and Andrew has warmed up to some of it lately. But we both had a great time at the museum!
I'm not sure that pictures from inside a museum are necessarily that interesting, but we did see all kinds of artifacts and other neat things related to country music -- from the beginning to today. The artifacts ranged from Elvis's gold-plated Cadillac to Taylor Swift's laptop to the original, handwritten lyrics to Dolly Parton's Jolene.
The actual Hall of Fame was at the very end of the museum. Will the circle be unbroken?
We did the right thing by going to the museum early, because by the time we left...the line for tickets was out the door! It wasn't even lunchtime yet, so we made our way back to Broadway for more sightseeing. Andrew had a few places he wanted us to check out, and we stopped in for some lunch eventually. (At first, we had the idea to try out Jack's BBQ, but apparently that was everyone else's idea too! We settled for some no-name BBQ instead.)
One place we wanted to go for sure was Hatch Show Print. It's a (very) long-running print shop on Broadway, and the look of their prints is very distinctive. The area up front was pretty small, but we loved looking around, listening to the live music, and meeting the resident cats!
You also can't go to Nashville without trying on some boots and hats! Andrew was a good sport and let me take a picture of him in the boots he tried on. Somehow he looked like a natural. :) (For some reason, most of the hat stores did not allow pictures.)
By this time, it was mid-afternoon, and we had early-ish dinner reservations. It was just a tad hot, too, so we decided to head back to the hotel for a little rest in the cool before it was time to go back out again. We attempted a selfie looking into the sun in front of the symphony before dinner. This was the best we got. :)
Our dinner reservations were at The Southern -- which we loved! The food was really good, but the atmosphere was casual and comfortable. It was great for a Saturday night on vacation.
The Southern was within walking distance of the hotel and Broadway, so we headed back that way after we ate. The sun was setting, making everything look really pretty! We thought it was interesting how the modern buildings in Nashville are right there in the middle of all the historic brick buildings.
We had it on good authority that The Big Bang dueling piano bar would show us a good time, so that's where we decided to spend our Saturday night. :) It was so much fun! We got there early enough to get seats at a table, so we were really able to enjoy it.
We had a low-key day planned for Sunday, and some parts of it turned out better than others. :) We started the day over at the Farmers Market near the state capitol. It was pretty early, so it wasn't too busy yet. We bought some pastries in the cafe for breakfast...until we saw other people eating breakfast burritos! So we bought one of those. Don't worry, though, we didn't let the pastries go to waste. ;)
We walked around looking at all the pretty plants, flowers, and veggies. Even though we were in Tennessee, one of the most popular produce items were fresh Georgia peaches.
However, I have to say that my personal favorite was this beautiful celery!
After the Farmers Market, we had plans to head over to East Nashville for brunch. We thought it would take a lot longer to get over there than it really did, and by the time we made it -- we were still pretty full of scones and breakfast burrito. So we decided to head back towards downtown to drive through the famous Music Row. It was obviously very quiet on a Sunday morning, and I didn't take any pictures. But it was still cool to see! All the record labels had banners out for recent awards their artists had received.
Then we went back to East Nashville to eat...only to find out that both of our restaurant options were not open for Sunday brunch! It was a bummer. Instead we headed back to the hotel and went to a microbrewery nearby to eat.
We saw lots of ads around town for the Ryman Auditorium tour, so we made an after-lunch decision to check it out. The Ryman was the original Grand Ole Opry, and they offer a self-guided tour. We thought it was great!
After touring the Ryman, we decided to have a little afternoon treat. We had passed Mike's Ice Cream a few times on Broadway, and there was always a line out the door! So we figured it was probably worth a visit (and even a short wait). It was!
Then we walked those treats off by crossing the giant pedestrian bridge over the Cumberland River, which is at the edge of downtown Nashville. The weather was really nice, and we even saw a wedding ceremony happening along the riverfront. You can also see the Tennessee Titans stadium from the bridge.
This is a terrible picture, but horse and carriage tours seem to be extremely popular in Nashville. This one carriage in particular had a bandana-wearing dog as a co-pilot. I swear that every single time we looked out a window at a meal on Broadway or came out of a store, this carriage was going by. I had to get a picture of him! (Hopefully you can see. The carriage is behind the parked cars.)
We didn't have set dinner plans for our last night, so we decided to go to The Palm for steaks! Never a bad last minute idea. We ate way...way...too much, but it was all so good. We were hoping to see someone famous on our trip, and The Palm seemed like as good a chance as any. No such luck, but we did enjoy seeing all the celebrity portraits and signatures on the walls.
Since it does take a little while to get from ATL to Nashville (and back), we didn't want to stick around for too long on Monday morning. We were out of the hotel pretty early with one last "must do" nearby:
The Loveless Cafe! We ventured a little ways outside Nashville and knew to expect a tad bit more than a "short" wait -- especially on a holiday. The projected wait time for two was an hour and forty-five minutes. Yikes. But we didn't go all that way to miss the famous biscuits!
Fortunately, they have little shops and other entertainment all around the cafe, which used to be part of a roadside motel. We were occupied (and cool), which made the wait bearable. In the end, our table was ready after about "only" an hour and twenty minutes.
Andrew had their famous country ham breakfast, and I had a biscuit sampler platter. I will refrain from telling you the number of biscuits the two of us consumed in total. Let's just say they were worth the wait!
Congratulations and thank you kindly if you are still reading! That was our trip to Nashville, and we loved it all. :)
