Things to Do in Nashville

Nashville is best known as being a center for the music industry, particularly for country music, so the city attracts many thousands of tourists every year who come to discover more about Nashville’s musical heritage, or visit for one of the annual festivals. Nashville also has some excellent museums, Civil War sites, and it’s a great city for dining out.

Restaurants and Cuisine in Nashville

As a Southern city a lot of the cuisine has those Southern influences with spicy dishes, fried meats, and homestyle meatloaf, ham and more. Typical dishes include Nashville Hot Chicken and Hot Fish which are both local specialties. The Hot Chicken is fried after being coated with buttermilk, then breaded, and heavily spiced with cayenne pepper. It’s served on top of white bread with pickle chips. Meat and Three is also very popular – here you get one meat and three side dishes and you could try Monell’s for some of this traditional Southern cooking.
There are restaurants serving international cuisines in Nashville but these are not as abundant as in other U.S. cities; still, if you want a Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, or Thai meal there are enough places to choose from.

Nashville’s Attractions

If you want to discover some of the musical heritage of “Music City”, head to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. It’s not just a museum about country music, but includes a history of the local area too. Other country music related attractions include the historic Ryman Auditorium and the Belcourt Theatre.
Nashville has a couple Civil War sites and you can learn more about these along with the history of the entire state of Tennessee at the Tennessee State Museum. There’s also the Cheekwood estate which is home to the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, and if you like old homes head to the Belle Meade historic plantation mansion.

Festivals in Nashville

As well as the permanent music-based attractions Nashville features numerous music and other festivals throughout the year. The CMA Music Festival is one of the largest, held over four days in June, and then there’s the CMA Music Awards that are hosted in Nashville each year and televised around the country. The Tennessee State Fair is another big crowd-drawer; it’s in September and lasts for a total of nine days.

Parks and Gardens

Nashville is a large city but it does have an excellent range of parks and gardens for residents and visitors to enjoy. The Metro Board of Parks and Recreation oversees 10,200 acres of land, and 99 parks and greenways. The Warner Parks are among the most popular – it’s actually two parks, Edwin Warner Park and Percy Warner Park and they have many hiking trails, an equestrian center, cross country courses, and scenic roads. Two lakes in the Nashville area are also very popular – Old Hickory Lake and Percy Priest Lake both offer fishing, boating, and water sports and are great for families.
Unusual for a U.S, city is Radnor Lake State Natural Area as it’s a nature preserve that’s situated right in Nashville itself. There are attractive woods surrounding the lake and it’s popular with walkers. You might see wildlife and birds while exploring.