Nashville, Tennessee has many names.

Athens of the South, Cashville, Nashvegas, The Protestant Vatican, The Buckle of the Bible Belt, Music City. 

Music City seemed to dominate today.

I didn’t love Music City. 

To be fair, I think we arrived at the wrong time. Nashville has a big football game here this weekend. The Philadelphia Eagles and the Tennessee Titans. 

Now, I’m not saying all Philadelphia Eagles fans are loud and obnoxious. 

But….

We started our Nashville experience with an Old Town Trolley tour. Tim, our tour guide took us on the hop-on, hop-off bus through 15 landmarks, entertaining us with stories of the people and music of Nashville. It was a great way to start the day.

Music Row, which is a street, is full of recording studios with big names like Taylor Swift, Megan Trainer and of course the famous RCA having studios there. 

Little known fact. According to our tour guide, Nashville invented the best hot chicken in the U.S. with six levels of heat.
1. Southern Fried Chicken
2. Mild
3. Medium
4. Hot
5. Super hot
6. Shut the cluck up
Personally I would be sticking with number 1.  If I ate southern fried chicken. Which reminds me, yet another reminder – to self. Just order an entree. Seems most courses come with sides of salad or soup, but more importantly hot bread. Which magically replenishes every time the basket looks empty. Today at lunch I am pretty sure I ate a whole loaf of bread, plus my lunch. 

Anyho! We did walk about 20km, surely that would wear off a loaf of bread. And no, I didn’t cheat by using the km’s we did on the Old Town Trolley Tour, which by the way I would highly recommend. 

Except if you happen to get Eddie Eagle and his band of merry idjits sitting behind you. Seemed every time anyone said words like football, eagles, game, sunshine, snow, rain, yes, no, hello, “Oh look at the Vanderbilt University”, the group behind us took the opportunity to scream and then sing the Eagles anthem. In our ears.

Leaving the bus on Broadway, we thought we had left Eddie and his Eagles behind. Not so. Eddie bought all of Philadelphia with him. The Eagles screaming continued on at 2nd Avenue and Broadway Street. And anywhere else we went.

Broadway was interesting. In Music City everyday, the music starts at 10am and finishes at 2am. That would be 2am the next morning. Most bars had floor to ceiling front windows which were left open. The bands played at the front of the bar, in the front window effectively, and in competition with the bar next door, the drummer with his butt to the open window. Aside from that, not because of that butted butt, the music was pretty amazing. 

We went to Country Music Hall of Fame which was definitely awesome and afterwards ended up going to an ice hockey event at the Music City Walk of Fame Park. Where MOD connected with some ice hockey comrades. 

A drink at a bar, a wander around and it was time to board the Music City Fun Bus and head back to the hotel. All of the hotels are about 14km away from the city centre. Probably a good thing given the noise level in the city. 

We did have a meal close to the hotel, at a place called Santa Fe. They have gummy bears in the big ‘ass’ drinks, and big arse fans in the bar (that would be of the ceiling variety), plus each table gets a bowl of peanuts and it is expected that as you eat said peanuts you throw the shell on the floor. I rather enjoyed that.

Tomorrow we take a tour backstage of the Grand Ole Opry before heading to Knoxville. 

The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage concert founded in 1925 as a one-hour ‘barn dance’ on radio WSM. Dedicated to honouring country music and it’s history, it showcases a mix of famous singers and contemporary country chart toppers, bluegrass, Americana, folk, gospel and comedic a performances.

Should be quite interesting.