Tennessee | 24 Hours in Nashville (Music City)

Nashville is the state capitol of Tennessee with a population of just over 650,000 people which is relatively small in comparison with other cities in the US. The city itself stradles the Cumberland River, which goes on to join the Mississippi River in Memphis. Nashville is famous throughout the world has being a place where musicians and music fans gravitate hence the nickname “Music City”, other than music Nashville is also a large rail hub as it is the confluence of different national railroads within the US.

The video is a composite of 3 days worth of footage taken while I was in Nashville a.k.a Music City while attending a conference- given the fact that for two of the days I was in the conference center, I felt this was best way of portraying life around Nashville and certainly Broadway over a 24 hour period.

All the bars which feature live music acts are predominantly set around Broadway between 5th Avenue North and 1st Avenue North a distance of about 0.25 miles. Just off Broadway within the avenues listed above are the other attractions- Ryman Auditorium, Country Music Hall of Fame to name a few. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to visit those.

At night Broadway is very lively with different genres of music and lots of drinks flowing; I found that some venues imposed a cover charge which I avoided as there are many others which are free to get it- the cover charge thing annoys me when the venue itself is charging exorbitant money for the food and drink on offer. You can have a good time on Broadway, but like the rest of Nashville its not exactly a cheap night out and I would say above average in terms of cost. But if you are a fan of rock / country music then I would definetly put a visit to Broadway in Nashville on your bucket list as it is something that just has to be experienced.

In the morning broadway is quite and the streets are normally wet after being rinsed down from the night before – no need to explain why! Other than bars with live music, Broadway has a few record shops and clothing shops which sell the typical southern attire of jeans, fancy shirt, big belt, boots and the obligatory stetson; not sure if that is a stereotype or not, so no offense intended- especially as I only saw a handful of people dressed like during my entire time in Nashville / Tennessee.

While staying in Nashville, you will on occasion hear train horns in the distance- I first heard one in the morning from my 22nd Floor hotel room, which took me by surprise! Nashville is a hub for the CSX railroad company and can be a magnet for trainspotters a.k.a ‘Rail Fans’ in the US. Having heard about how big American freight trains can be in comparison with those in the UK, I decided to go looking for one at the railroad crossing on 2nd Avenue North and also Demonbreun Street. After a short wait, sure enough a huge train which took approximately 10 minutes to pass- so given an estimated speed of 15 mph that would make the train approximately 2.5 miles long. Nashville is a rail hub at is the cross road between rails travelling North-to-South and East-to-West. Hence throughout the day, you will hear train horns in the distance, which from what I seen is a bit of an annoyance for certain areas within East Nashville.

During my time in Nashville it was Marine Week, whereby a significant amount of US Marines decend on the city to perform live demonstrations, static displays of military hardware, musical performances and demonstrations of time honours Marine Corps traditions. It was very impressive- especially as one afternoon a MV-22 Osprey hovered over the city and landed in one the open areas.

I enjoyed my time in Nashville as it has always somewhere I wanted to visit due to my tastes in music! It surprised me how small and compact the city was- especially the music areas since alot of it is centred around the lower end of Broadway. The actual recording studios etc are located out of town nowadays or in the big high-rises. If I return in the future, I’ll definetly want to see a performance in the Ryman Auditorium and explore some of the other venues that were on offer.

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