TRAVEL FEATURES
The flip side of Nashville
The 'Athens of the South' has much more than country music.
My college-sophomore son and I make an interesting pair. He'll listen to country music all day long and is teaching himself to pluck a tune or two on the guitar; I'll tolerate the music in limited doses, but if I never heard another country song again, I probably wouldn't miss it.
Can two mismatched people spend a mutually enjoyable day or so in Nashville? Piece of cake. Make that a piece of pecan pie.Even if you don't know that a git-fiddle is a twangy word for guitar or that "bless your heart" is Polite Southern for "bite me," Nashville is a fun town. There's plenty to see and do, the weather's nice even in the dead of winter (compared with what we Yankees endure), and non-stop flights from Chicago are cheap. (Several round-trip non-stops for January from Chicago are available for less than $200.)
More important, Nashville is a real city, with cool museums, sophisticated restaurants, colleges (Vanderbilt University, and let's not forget Belmont University, which hosted one of the presidential debates), an
Less important, Nashville has some of the coolest team names: The Titans (football). The
(Nashville also is known as the "Athens of the South," a goofy nickname hung on the town after it built a lifesized replica of the Parthenon in the late 1800s as part of Nashville's centennial exposition. The Parthenon, rebuilt and gleaming, still stands proudly in Centennial Park.)
Spike O'Dell, longtime morning man for WGN-AM, just retired. Guess where he moved? (Spike gives us his Nashville dining recommendations below.)
Anyway, here we were, Country Boy and City Dad, hanging around in Nashville, with only two problems: Our mutually exclusive musical tastes and the small matter of the boy's under-21 status, which barred him from the honky-tonks and most of the other musical clubs.
We still had fun. And we didn't go near the Grand Ole Opry.
Day 1
We set up camp in the Union Station Hotel, a property I'd admired on an earlier trip, when I'd killed a couple of hours in Nashville on my way someplace else. It actually was the city's main railroad station once upon a time, and it looks very much the part of a grand old hotel, with its exterior ironwork and magnificent marble lobby. Behind the front desk is an enormous, old-timey display of train arrivals and departures, as though the station were still operating.
And among the myriad sofas and chairs in the lobby, some women in beautiful dresses were being photographed.
"Magazine shoot," the porter said matter-of-factly. "We get a lot of that."
The upstairs room levels are a bit confusing--the hallways are practically labyrinths--but it all circles back, so if you pick a direction and stick to it, eventually you'll find your room. There was a little pardon- our-dust action going on in the property (not that it affected me), and the hotel was dealing, so I managed a sweet price for a huge room with extra chairs, a flat-screen TV and enough room to play catch. We put room service through its paces the first night, and they did just fine.
The first thing we did in the morning, apart from sleeping very late (rousing a college sophomore is not the easiest thing in the world), is head out to the Farmers Market, a year-round market on the north end of town. We found it without too much difficulty, once we figured out that 8th Avenue and Rosa Parks Boulevard are the same street. The market buildings themselves are nothing special (though one is undergoing renovation), but the abundant displays of fresh vegetables and fruits are impressive.
I looked askance at the tall stack of bananas, but most everything else appeared to be local. As far as Chris (my son) was concerned, this stop combined the lethargy of a non-interactive museum with the horrors of fresh vegetables.
We didn't linger.
Already it was time for lunch, so we sped south to Arnold's, one of Nashville's legendary meat-and-threes, restaurants that serve a protein and choice of three sides for a set (and ridiculously low) price. Chris and I made our way through the cafeteria-style line, loading up on country-fried steak, green beans, tomatoes and mashed potatoes (him) and fried shrimp with collards, fried green tomatoes and mac & cheese (me), washed down with water and sweet tea. You sit at beat-up tables with mismatched chairs, surrounded by cinderblock walls painted beige.
You don't come here for the ambience.
But the food is good, the portions huge, and the whole thing set me back $20, including the $2.50 I left behind for the busser.
Then it was time to indulge the lad, so it was off to the Country Music Hall of Fame, whose moderndesign exterior gives way to exhibit space that celebrates two centuries of country music. One floor is devoted to yesteryear, including a limited-run exhibit dedicated to trailblazing singer Kitty Wells; the other floor is more contemporary, housing an homage to the Williams family (principally Hank and Hank Jr.) that runs through the end of the year (hurry).
In between are scores of costume displays, audio and video clips, a wall of gold records that seems to go on forever and a grand, glassdomed Hall of Fame rotunda filled with the bronze plaques of inductees.
You could spend a lot of time here, especially if you pop for the one-hour guided tour of RCA Studio B, where such stars as
From the big house to the outhouse, sort of, we next traveled about six blocks to the Hermitage Hotel, a grand property in the middle of the business district and home to two impressive-looking restaurants, including the very upscale Capitol Grille (no relation to the Capital Grille steakhouse chain, which is spelled differently).
But that's not why we visited. I was looking for the bathroom. The Hermitage, you see, was the grand winner of this year's America's Best Restroom award, which goes to the loo with exceptional hygiene, style and public access, and this I had to see. We strolled into the lobby and found the restroom without too much trouble. It was nice, elegant in a neutral hotel way and spotless. I wasn't dazzled.
We were heading for the door when Chris said, "Maybe that's not the right bathroom."
Hmmm. I approached the concierge desk and began a hem-and-haw inquiry. Apparently the hotel personnel get this question a lot, because the concierge stopped me in midsentence and directed me to the proper potty.
"We're very proud of it," she smiled.
As well they ought to be. This was a spectacular restroom, an Art Deco aqua-and-black, spotlit potty palace, a gleaming Royal Flush whose splendor made me feel, well, inadequate. I had no business being there. I snapped a dozen or so photographs and left, resisting the urge to bow.
We decided to put some miles on the car, so we zipped west to Music Row, because with a name like Music Row, it's got to be cool, right? With music?
Um, no. Music Row is great if you want to drive past rows of corporate headquarters for major and independent recording labels, and I guess you could hope to see a star walking in or out, but mostly it's a collection of impressive buildings open for business, not tours. Studio B actually is here, but you still have to buy tickets through the Country Music Hall of Fame.
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