Two Days in Nashville, TN

 

    My husband and I spend two days in Nashville, Tennessee for our wedding anniversary.  This was my first time visiting Nashville.  Previously, I had mostly only driven through it on the way to Florida from Indiana.  Nashville is a seven hour drive from where I currently live.  We drove down and left in the morning of the first day, spend two nights, and returned back home in the afternoon two days later.  Here is what we did...

Garden Conservatory at the Gaylord Opryland

    You can visit the Conservatory at Opryland even if you aren't staying at the hotel.  You can enter for free but you have to pay to park there.  You can also just park at the Opry Mills mall and walk from there.  I'm not 100% sure if you can get in trouble for doing that so I recommend going into the mall as well.  There may be limited hours that the Conservatory is open to guests not staying there.  I believe I may have read that somewhere. 

    The gardens were amazing and so expansive.   I highly recommend giving them a visit if you enjoy gardens or plants.  There are bridges, statues, pathways, and waterfalls.  There are even gift shops, restaurants, and coffee shops inside.  It's a fun little stop in Nashville. 

Hattie B's Hot Chicken

    If you are going to Nashville, you need to try Nashville style hot chicken.  It's amazing! We went to Hattie B's two times in two days and even went to a different chicken restaurant (mentioned later).  Hattie B's is super popular and has several locations around Nashville.  I loved the chicken, french fries, and grits from here.  I don't recommend the mac and cheese because it hardly had any noodles and the few that there were, were overcooked.  

Centennial Park

    We spent a few hours in Centennial Park because there was amazing weather when we were in Nashville.  There were flowers and blossoming trees everywhere.  Centennial Park is a very large park that has a museum that is a to scale replica of the parthenon.  This park also has a pond, gardens, sculptures, etc.  If you are a Swifty, like me, you may want to stop by the Taylor Swift memorial bench.   

 

Red's Hot Chicken

    Right next to Centennial Park you can find Reds Hot Chicken.  This is the other chicken spot that we ate at.  I may like it slightly better than Hattie B's but they are basically equal.  The chicken, french fries, and mac and cheese are amazing! Both are a very similar price range.  This is more of a small shack so if you have a big family or want to sit and eat you may want to go somewhere else.  I think this place could be a better option for take out.  

    We walked about the area of Nashville where there are a lot of recording studios.  We had some spare time and didn't really know what to do.  I'm pretty sure you can tour some of these but we didn't do that.  

Broadway

    Broadway is definitely one of the most popular spots to visit in Nashville.  It's a street in downtown  that has a bunch of bars that play live music.  Its a pretty wild street and feels a lot like a tiny Las Vegas.  I honestly wasn't expecting it to be so loud and crowded.  It was fun but much larger than I thought it would be.  I didn't do much research before going because I'm not a huge fan of country music but that's not all that is played.  Artists will perform different genres.  We just went to Tootsies Orchard Lounge for a few hours.  If you are only visiting Broadway in the evening you can park at the courthouse for a flat rate of $5 or $6.  Its only a few blocks away from Broadway and a pretty quick walk. 

    The next morning we went to the Gulch.  It's a neighborhood in Nashville that has a lot of trendy restaurants and murals.  That's where I took the first photo in this post, against the colorful wall.  We just got coffee and walked around a bit.  Then we went back to Hattie B's.  After eating we stopped by The Bluebird Cafe, just to see it.  If you're a Swifty, you know.  Then we decided to head home and came across Love Shack Fancy.  I had to stop because the building is beautiful and I wanted to run inside the store to look around.  

    

    Nashville makes a great little weekend getaway.  I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of things there are to do there and by how fun the city feels.  I never really thought about visiting much because I though it was all just country music and bars.  I'm not a huge drinker so that didn't appeal to me.  However, there is a ton to do and I actually can't wait to go back.  I've been thinking about the chicken every day since.