Yesterday, I spent time in Nashville. It's so hard to pick just one or two things to do in such a big city with so much history, but I can't road trip forever and therefore have to keep things to somewhat of a minimum in each place. Therefore, I chose 2 attractions that I think embody two very different aspects of Nashville's history: The Parthenon and the Country Music Hall of Fame.
The Parthenon was my first stop. 
It's located in Centennial Park near Vanderbilt University. I was very impressed with the architecture and history of the structure. I never wanted to be an architect, well maybe for a few minutes in elementary school when I liked using a ruler to draw buildings cityscapes, but I love studying architecture and seeing uniquely designed buildings or at least ones with some history attached to them. The Parthenon definitely fit the bill since its history dates back to Ancient Greece! This Parthenon is the only full-zize replica in the world and it's in tact, which might actually make it a little cooler than the ruins that stand on the Acropolis in Greece today. It allowed me to see the structure how the Ancient Greeks would have seen it, which is pretty amazing. I would love to see the real thing in Greece someday, but for now this works just fine!
It's located in Centennial Park near Vanderbilt University. I was very impressed with the architecture and history of the structure. I never wanted to be an architect, well maybe for a few minutes in elementary school when I liked using a ruler to draw buildings cityscapes, but I love studying architecture and seeing uniquely designed buildings or at least ones with some history attached to them. The Parthenon definitely fit the bill since its history dates back to Ancient Greece! This Parthenon is the only full-zize replica in the world and it's in tact, which might actually make it a little cooler than the ruins that stand on the Acropolis in Greece today. It allowed me to see the structure how the Ancient Greeks would have seen it, which is pretty amazing. I would love to see the real thing in Greece someday, but for now this works just fine! I got some great artistic shots of the building as well as myself and must admit I'm getting extremely skilled with the tripod. 
Maybe I should finally invest in a more expensive camera and take up photography as a new hobby. Something to contemplate, but perhaps not until I have a source of income again!
Maybe I should finally invest in a more expensive camera and take up photography as a new hobby. Something to contemplate, but perhaps not until I have a source of income again!
I also paid the $5 to go inside the museum housed below the Parthenon, which had some interesting pieces of artwork ranging from numerous sketches of the Acropolis by many different artists to miscellaneous artwork, some of which I was extremely impressed by because they looked more like photographs to me than the oil paintings they actually were (unfortunately I couldn't take pictures in that section to preserve the paintings) to replicas of the ruins of the sculptures on the panoramas at the top of both the front and back of the structure. There was also an enormous bronze/gold statue of Athena.
She was located on the upstairs level of the museum, which was actually the large space that made of the inside of the Parthenon. It was very fun to not only see such an amazing piece of architecture, but to be able to go inside it as well! By now, I was getting pretty hungry, so I headed to the little shopping plaza across the street from the park and checked out a sandwich place there. It was very crowded, so I wandered into the Borders next door and stumbled upon a Nashville book in which the author suggested several local restaurants for visitors, including one called the Pancake Pantry. I was in the mood for breakfast food so I decided to check it out. The streets in Nashville can be tough to navigate as there are lots of one way streets and it's not quite set up like a grid system like I'm used to in LA, so it took some time, but I didn't give up and settle for another Panera Bread meal and finally found the Pancake Pantry! 
Usually, I'm more of a bacon and eggs kind of girl, but since this place is known for their pancakes, I thought it only right to give their pancakes a try and it was totally worth it! They were so good, especially with the warm, sweet maple syrup poured on top, mmm, mmm, good! I recommend it if you're ever in Nashville!
Usually, I'm more of a bacon and eggs kind of girl, but since this place is known for their pancakes, I thought it only right to give their pancakes a try and it was totally worth it! They were so good, especially with the warm, sweet maple syrup poured on top, mmm, mmm, good! I recommend it if you're ever in Nashville!After brunch, I headed downtown to the Country Music Hall of Fame. 
Since I had just been to Graceland, I found it hard not to compare the two music museums and I actually liked hte Country Music one a little better. I prefer self-guided tours of museums where I can look at the things I want to look at and spend as much or as little time doing so as I want to, which was the experience I was given at the Country Music Hall of Fame, whereas Graceland felt much more structured, almost as if I was walking thru the White House at times, which I didn't expect and didn't enjoy as much. Don't get me wrong, Graceland is definitely still worth a visit as I was able to see some rare and interesting historic artifacts, but I also felt like I can identify more with current country music legends such as Garth Brooks, Reba McIntyre, Faith Hill, etc. than I can with Elvis who was quite a bit before my time. On another note, no pun intended, the museum building itself was quite unique in that the window pattern on the front of the building was designed in such a way as to look like a keyboard, which I thought was pretty clever!
Since I had just been to Graceland, I found it hard not to compare the two music museums and I actually liked hte Country Music one a little better. I prefer self-guided tours of museums where I can look at the things I want to look at and spend as much or as little time doing so as I want to, which was the experience I was given at the Country Music Hall of Fame, whereas Graceland felt much more structured, almost as if I was walking thru the White House at times, which I didn't expect and didn't enjoy as much. Don't get me wrong, Graceland is definitely still worth a visit as I was able to see some rare and interesting historic artifacts, but I also felt like I can identify more with current country music legends such as Garth Brooks, Reba McIntyre, Faith Hill, etc. than I can with Elvis who was quite a bit before my time. On another note, no pun intended, the museum building itself was quite unique in that the window pattern on the front of the building was designed in such a way as to look like a keyboard, which I thought was pretty clever! 
Here are a few other things I thought were interesting inside the museum (a lot of the images are blurry from a combination of once again not being able to use flash to preserve the artifacts and having to take photos thru the reflective glass which distorts the images as well):
Johnny Cash's suit and Willie Nelson's sneakers
Elvis' Gold Piano
Webb Pierce's "Silver Dollar" Convertible (complete with pistols as door handles, a saddle in the front seat, and silver dollars glued to the dashboard and saddle)
One of my favorite people because I love to order Roy Rogers to drink at restaurants, good old fashioned grenadine and coke, mmm, mmm, good! Thanks Roy!All in all I think I got a decent taste of Nashville, but would love to spend more time someday both there and in Memphis. I feel like I sort of breezed through both cities very quickly and while I saw and experienced quite a bit in a short amount of time, I don't think I can fairly judge whether I liked each city or not because I feel like I didn't spend enough time there to know. Alas, someday...
No comments:
Post a Comment