This was our first experience with staying in an AirBnB property. We had almost written off Nashville as a stay over destination when we found that hotel rooms were well north of $600/night. After a bit of research, we managed to rent a small top floor apartment in a house in the trendy 12th Street South area.
We were minutes walking distance from many shops and restaurants which we took advantage of on our first night there.
The next morning, we used the ride share service Lyft to get to the heart of the city. This is an operation similar to Uber and we were really impressed with how quickly the ride showed up and the quality of the vehicles (think new Lexus vs. smelly Toronto Taxi). We had booked a walking tour of downtown and ended up a bit early so went for lunch in one of the bars on Honky Tonk Row. Most of these bar/restaurants have live entertainment even at 11:30 in the morning!
We met up with our tour guide and ended up doing a two hour walk about the downtown area and got a bit of the history of how the city has evolved from a river based trading centre to the present day when they cannot get enough construction cranes to keep up with the development of hotels and condos.
After our walk, we stopped into one of the quieter bars for a cold beer before heading to 3rd and Lindley, a popular performer's venue for supper and a show. It just happened that tonight's show was a charity benefit for the local "Y" and featured several recognized Country artists.
Another Lyft ride and we were home by 11:00 pm.
The next day, we had a leisurely breakfast in our apartment and then took a Lyft to downtown again to tour "The Ryman", the past home of the Grand Ole Opry (until 1973). This is a fabulous old building that started life as a church and then became a major entertainment centre of the South during the 20's, 30's and 40's before becoming home of the Opry. Amazing how many performers have graced its storied halls.
After the tour, we walked a couple of km to an area called "The Gulch". There are lots of newer restaurants, bars and upscale hotels. We stopped for a late lunch and then took a Lyft back to our apartment just as the sky turned black and it started to rain.
We had tickets for the "new" Grand Ole Opry at Opryland, normally about a 30 minute drive away. We left in plenty of time to get there to pick up our tickets and are glad we did. The bad weather combined with the Friday night traffic turned it into a 1.5 hour drive.
It was an interesting experience and we enjoyed most of the performers. The new facility is twice the size of the old Opry. It is interesting that this is still a live broadcast performance.
We managed to get home before the thunderstorms returned. Overnight we were repeatedly awakened by flashes of lightening and thunder. Quite a storm rolled through dropping about 4 inches of rain. We were glad we got our two days of touring in as Saturday ended up being continued rain as we headed north to home.
Our last overnight stop was Columbus Ohio. The last day on the road was only about 6 hours of driving and we arrived home at around 3:00 pm. We had travelled 5520 km since leaving Indio CA at the beginning of the month.
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