Visit Nashville

Over five blocks between the Cumberland River and 5th Avenue, Lower Broadway strings together multi-storey honky-tonks where bands take turns from 10 or 11 am until late at night, usually with no cover charge. Tipping the musicians, slipped into the jar on stage, is part of their pay. At weekends, bachelorette parties and party buses swamp the street: for a more musical atmosphere, come on a weekday before 6 pm. The John Seigenthaler pedestrian bridge offers the best view of the skyline at sunset.

On 16th and 17th Avenues, Music Row lines up houses turned into labels, studios and publishing companies that produce a large share of American country music. RCA Studio B, where Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton recorded, can only be visited with a ticket combined with the Country Music Hall of Fame, departing from the museum. Neighbouring Midtown concentrates student bars around Vanderbilt University. To the west, Centennial Park holds the full-size replica of the Parthenon built for the 1897 exposition. Allow half a day for the area.

South-west of downtown, The Gulch, a former railyard district, has filled with hotels, restaurants and endlessly photographed murals. 12 South, ten minutes away by car, keeps a residential feel with shops and cafés along about a kilometre. To the north, Germantown, founded by German immigrants in the 19th century, mixes restored brick houses and well-known restaurants, next to Bicentennial Park and its covered market. Each of these areas suits an afternoon, ideally followed by dinner there.

Across the Cumberland, East Nashville gathers small venues, neighbourhood bars and hot chicken joints, far from the Broadway crowds. Like North Nashville and Germantown, the area was hit by a tornado in March 2020, a reminder that Tennessee gets violent storms in spring. Further east, about 15 km away, the Opry House has hosted the Grand Ole Opry since 1974, several nights a week. Each show brings together around ten artists, each playing a few songs, for about two hours. The concerts there often feel more intimate than you might expect.

Franklin, about 30 km south, keeps a Victorian centre and the 1864 battlefield, one of the bloodiest clashes of the Civil War. The Hermitage, President Andrew Jackson's plantation some twenty kilometres east, also addresses the history of the enslaved people who lived there. The Jack Daniel's distillery in Lynchburg is about 1 hour 30 away. For a musical road trip through the South of the United States, you can then head down to the jazz of New Orleans, about eight hours' drive away.