Nashville: Broadway, Vandy, & The Hermitage

Our adventure continues.. after we went to the wedding in Alabama and visited the Jack Daniel's Distillery, we continued on to Nashville. We arrived after lunch time and checked into our hotel downtown. After we were all situated, we decided to walk around downtown and find somewhere for a late lunch and some cold beverages. As we were walking around, we happened upon a dog on top of a horse, which was interesting.

As soon as we started walking around, I realized downtown Nashville is a lot like downtown Dallas, full of cheesey restaurants and tourists. Considering this was our first time in Nashville, I didn't feel so bad and figured we had to see it at least once. We decided to try Big River Grille and Brewing Works. We sat on the patio and ordered a sampling of all of the beers they brew on location before we committed ourselves to a full glass. I ordered the IPA and I think Eric ordered one of the dark ones. We both had sandwiches and they were HUGE and good.

Notice how the lighter ones are gone first. I don't care much for darker beers. Eric got those.

After lunch, we ventured down Broadway (where all the live music venues are) and went into a little place called The Stage. This is Keith Nixon (we are now facebook friends haha) and he was pretty good! The band played a variety of old, new, and some original songs. It was fun to just sit back and relax and listen to some country music.

Then this man came in! His hat says he is a Nashville Clogger and clogging he did! He got our there on the dance floor (with the wife of one of the band members) and did his thing. He was wearing tap shoes! It was quite entertaining to watch and everyone in the audience enjoyed his little jig.

After spending the afternoon on Broadway, we went back to our hotel to get ready for the evening. We ended up going to Morton's Steak House for dinner and enjoyed a great steak, which is something we never do at home. It was delicious. After dinner, we walked around on Broadway and went into some more bars and listened to more live music. We ventured over to the other side of Nashville the next day for lunch and ended up walking around Vanderbilt University. The campus was absolutely gorgeous. The buildings were old and so neat and there were trees everywhere! I don't know how the students don't get lost here.

After our walk around Vanderbilt, we drove up to The Hermitage, which was the home of President Andrew Jackson.  We went on a tour of the home and the gounds and got our American history lesson for the weekend (year).

This is the back of the house.

This is Alfred's Cabin. It was a slave cabin until after the Emmancipation, but Alfred, one of Jackson's favorite slaves, decided to stay on the plantation and he lived in this house.

Inside of Alfred's Cabin

Front of the house

We didn't have a ton of time here, so we didn't learn as much as we could have. We had to rush the audio tour to make sure we got to the airport in time to make our flight. The house and grounds were beautiful and I am glad to have learned a little bit more about an American president and how life was in his day. We had a great time in Nashville and it was nice to get away for a weekend. Neither of us had been here before and I am happy to say I have listened to live music on Broadway now! Too bad I didn't run into Taylor Swift...