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mikacat · Coach

nashville--need advice

Metric · Gucci

When I was in High School my mom won a trip there so she took me. I hated country music at the time but I had a surprisingly terrific time. The city is (or was, that was 10 years ago now) very beautiful and very clean.

When had breakfast buffet on a riverboat cruise, went to the Grand Old Opry ( not my cup of tea), went on a tour of country stars homes and saw all of the momuments dedicated to President Polk. Also we ate at a place called the Cracker Barrel and the food was great.

We stayed at the Renaissance Nashville hotel which was gorgeous. And it has a mall right across the street.

Valenciana lives in Nashville, I believe, but she hasn't been around in ages.

HTH, it seems like such a long time ago now.

ejc423 · Coach

My brother and my best friend both live in Nashville so I go visit a good bit. SFCline went to Vandy, so she can probably help you out a lot w/ local stuff.

If you can go to the Pancake Pantry, GO (you'll wait in a super long line, esp if you go on a weekend, but it's worth it)! A lot of locals will tell you it's a tourist trap, but I swear they are the best pancakes and hashbrowns I've ever tasted. It's located in a cute area called Hillsborough Village where you'll find some great little shops.

There's also plenty of tourist-y stuff to do if you want to go that route. Have fun!

cc · Marc Jacobs

My sister and I went on a roadtrip to Nashville last fall and we loved it!

I can't remember the name of our hotel (it was Sheraton or a similar chain) and it was right downtown within walking distance of the Ryman Auditorium (former home of the Grand Ole Opry) and the honky tonks.

We were only there for 2 nights so we didn't get to do a ton. I would have loved to see a show at the Ryman but there wasn't anything going on when we were there. It's cool to go inside and look at the displays though. Going to the honky tonks at night was a lot of fun. They're all on the same street so you can just hop around. We went to the Frist Museum - the building is really nice but I thought the collection/exhibits were just so-so. We went to the new Grand Ole Opry as well which has a museum but the whole Opryland area is just like a giant mall complex so it's not very interesting although we wound up spending hours in the hotel there. I think it's the biggest hotel in the country and it's along the lines of the hotels in Vegas - lots of attactions like an indoor garden and weird jungle thing complete with a fake river.

We also went to the Hermitage which is the home of Andrew Jackson and that was really awesome.

And we met up with valenciana but she has since moved.

I'll try to look for my notes tonight to see if I can find any other useful info for you.

sfclinevandy · Coach

I went to Vandy (Go Commodores!). I haven't been up in about a year, but here are my recs

To Shop:

-Jaime's- the best boutique in Nashville.

-Boutique Bella- the website IRL!

-McClures-it's like an old fashion department store in Belle Meade.

-Green Hills Mall- typical mall stuff (Bebe, BR, J. Crew) Betsy Johnson

-Nicole Miller boutique in Green Hills

-OpryMills- a huge outlet mall by the Opryland hotel

To Eat:

-Green Hills Grille (it's super casual but my favorite)

-Off music row, Bound'ry is really good and has a really innovative menu

-Hillsbourough Village, Sunset Grille (my other favorite)... you must get the Pot de Creme for dessert

-If you want to see country music movers and shakers, go to Noshville for lunch on a weekday

-Near Vandy, Tin Angel is really laid-back and has fancy comfort food... Calypso is fast-food Carribean, it's a whole in the wall but so good that Vandy girls are known to eat there 5 nights a week

-Elliston Place- Gold Rush. This is my ex-boyfriend's resturant. He's redone it (when I was in college it was a run down resturant) and he claims lots of music industry bigwigs hang out there. It's bar at night that attracts everyone from Vandy grad students to local musicans and athletes.

To do for fun..

Umm, I went to college in Nashville so I am VERY familar with all the drinking establishments

-You go walk around Vanderbilt... it's right in the middle of mid-town but the campus is gorgeous

-Drive up and down music row

-Downtown Nashillve has lots of legandary bars/honky tonks that you MUST check out... Tootsie's is more famous but Lonnie's is far superior

-Go to the Bluebird Cafe... songwriters play their music while you eat.

-Don't go to the Parthenon... it's a huge replica of the Parthenon (duh). It's so boring and the only person I've ever known to enjoy it was my grandmother.

-The best part of Nash Vegas is there is live music EVERYWHERE. It seriously spoils you because once I left it seemed like every bar/resturant I went to was missing something. There are so many types of music in Nasville that you'll surely find something you like.

***I know Valenciana has better/more recent recommendations too. If you have any questions, pm me. It seems like I listed tons of things, but Nashville is not very big and everything is pretty close by.

-- Edited by sfclinevandy at 17:22, 2005-07-21