May 4

We continued our trek through Tennessee to Nashville, Home of Country Music. We are staying right near the Grand Ole Opry. We have tickets for the show on Tuesday evening and the Back Stage Tour Tuesday morning. We went into downtown Nashville to stroll along Broadway, honky tonk central!

Nashville

Broadway - Music Scene

The street is lined with boot shops, country gal fashions, restaurants and bars. Ryman Auditorium, the “Mother Church of Country Music,” is just up the street. It is birthplace of bluegrass and original home to the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974.

Ryman Auditorium

The whole music scene is only a couple of blocks long. Looking over the roof tops on Broadway you see the modern world with tall skyscrapers. It’s like walking down Bourbon Street in New Orleans with live music pouring out of the bars and restaurants. We ate on an open deck upstairs at Rippy’s but they were in between performers. Rippy’s is where you get your honky tonked and your bushwhacked (?). It was a lively place!

We checked out the famous Ernest Tubb Record Shop and then went into the Tequila Cowboy for a cold drink and to listen to some music. It was 90 degrees outside! On one end of Broadway is a huge new arena with a convention center across the street. They are building an enormous new music center right behind the arena. The Nashville Predator Hockey Team was playing a play off game that evening. Broadway was closed off to cars and lots of people were walking around with their “Predator shirts” on. Go Preds! Trying to find some of the sites in Nashville seemed to be a bit of a challenge with lots of traffic and construction. We decided to take a Gray Line all day bus tour on Sunday to get the most out of our visit.