We spent the day in Music City. It was a busy day since the NFL draft is being held here tomorrow. We visited several places. We started at the state capitol building.
The Tennessee Capitol is on top of the highest hill in Nashville
It is quite a climb up the hill to the Capitol. We counted over 400 steps. It was almost like some of our treks to waterfalls. It was worth the climb. This was our first of fifty state capitol buildings we plan to visit.
The building is beautiful both inside and out. We followed the self guided tour booklet. The most unusual item noted was the gunfire damage to a marble stairway rail that occurred during a particularly hot debate.
We got to view both the house and senate chambers and see many other parts of the Capitol building.
Here we are as we head to the Tennessee State Museum.
The museum traces the people of the state from early history up through today. We did not get to see the whole museum because of its size, and the other places we wanted to tour.
After the Tennessee State Museum we went to the Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame.
This museum covers a broad history of country music and includes rotating displays that focus on specific artists. The biggest surprise in the museum was a display of the Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit. Since we once owned a Trams Am, I felt obliged to take a picture. I was disappointed to note that the car was an automatic.
We also visited an interesting artifact of an expo held in Nashville in 1897 for the Nashville Centennial. The city built a full scale replica of the Parthenon in Athens, as it looked during the time of ancient Greece. The current building is impressive. It makes the original even more impressive because we have so much more equipment compared to what the ancient Greeks had.
Our final stop was the Grand Ole Opry. It was closed for a private event. The event was probably related to the NFL draft that is due to occur in Nashville tomorrow. Because of the private event, we were not able to tour the Grand Ole Opry. Even with the extra traffic from the pending NFL draft and the closing of the Grand Ole Opry for the day, We had a great day in Nashville.
This was as close as we could get.