Howdy!

Today we thought we should get a lay of the land and therefore we decided to take the Old Town Trolley Tour. We have taken their tours in Savannah, Boston, Key West, and Washington D.C. What is great about their tours is that you can get off at any stop, explore the area and then get back on.

We headed downtown and found us a parking spot, a really really expensive parking spot. We walked over to an Old Town Trolley Ticket booth and picked up our tickets ($41.50 USD / person). Lucky for us, Stop #1 was only a five minute walk and that is where we boarded the bus.

In total there are fifteen stops on the tour which lasts about an hour and forty-five minutes. Some of the highlights included the Country Music Hall of Fame, Ryman Auditorium, Nashville Farmer’s Market, Centennial Park which includes a live size replica of The Parthenon and Music Row. Our guide Arian gave us a lot of information about Nashville and kept us entertained as well. We made note of a few places that we need to go and explore in more detail later in the week.

Once we got back, we walked over to the Goo Goo Shop and had ourselves a Goo Goo Cluster. What is a Goo Goo Cluster you ask … a disk-shaped candy bar that is made with marshmallow nougat, caramel, roasted peanuts and covered in milk chocolate. It was created in Nashville and how is it that I’ve never heard of these things. From there, we walked to Puckettt’s Grocery & Restaurant where we had BBQ meal #1 … pulled pork sandwich, fried green tomato BLT and a TN pound cake for dessert.

We walked back down to Lower Broadway and explored Nashville’s Honky Tonk Highway. It is a row of bars pumping out live music onto the street. There is no cover charge and the places are open from 10:00am to 3:00am. Everyone from Kid Rock to Jason Aldean to Blake Shelton to Dierks Bentley has a place there. Besides the bars, there are also many shops to check out including Boot Barn, Savannah Candy Kitchen and Ernest Tubb Record Shop.

Before going back to the hotel, we made a couple of stops. The first was at the WhatLiftsYou mural. It is one of Nashville’s more famous murals. It stands twenty feet high and it is a painting of a pair of wings.

After that, we drove down Music Row which is the heart of Nashville’s entertainment industry. Within the homes and buildings on the two streets, are recording studios where everyone from Elvis Presley to the Foo Fighters have recorded.

We got back to the hotel and headed down to the pool for a quick dip. Across the street from us is Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint and that is where we picked up BBQ meal #2 for dinner. I think the heat did us in because we spent the rest of the evening just chilling at the hotel.