Weekend Getaway - Nashville, TN

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        We try to take a weekend getaway every year around our anniversary.  This past weekned we did just that:) Desperate for warmth and sunshine, I planned this year’s trip to Nashville, TN. Nashville is five hours due south of Indy, and temperatures are usually around 70 this time of year! Unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side. It still felt like winter while we were visiting:( Other than the weather, we really enjoyed our trip. Normally, I would use pictures from my trip to give readers a step by step of our planned weekend. For this post, I decided to go to Google images and look up pictures of where we went, linking pictures back to the source where I found them. The reason for this is because we ran into a phone/computer problem when we got back from our trip, and all of my photos from the weekend got deleted - major bummer:( On the bright side, I did manage to upload a few pics to Instagram as we were experiencing our weekend, and I’ll share those pics at the end of this post. Without further ado, here was what I had planned for our weekend in Nashville, TN.



OUR TRIP ITENERARY

We left the house around 8:00 a.m. on Friday and drove five hours south to our destination.  There is an hour difference between Indy and Nashville, so by gaining an hour we arrived around lunch time.  We started our trip by visiting downtown Franklin, TN.  Franklin is a historic town about 30 minutes south of Nashville.  We enjoyed visiting the shops of this quaint town.

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We ate lunch at the Franklin Mercantile Deli.  I’d describe this place as country chic.  Decorated in a casual yet classy country setting, I definitely noticed the detail that went into the décor and really appreciated the atmosphere. It’s a soup, salad and sandwich place, but it has a bistro feel to it as well.  Many appeared to be enjoying a glass of wine with their meal, and several people seemed to come in for the soup of the day or fruit tea.  I did not try the tea, but the tomato basil soup was delish!  Best of all, it cost us less than $20.

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After visiting downtown Franklin, we checked into our hotel on the outskirts of Franklin, so we could get cleaned up for our evening plans. I prefer to stay in three or four star hotels when we travel, and I ALWAYS read the reviews!!!   A nice hotel in a convenient location with the best price is VERY important to us when we travel. Initially, I wanted to stay in downtown Nashville, but I couldn’t find a nice hotel for less than $250 a night, breakfast not included.  Not willing to pay that price, we decided to stay at the Hyatt Place (Nashville/Franklin/CoolSprings) for $140.  Our suite was nice and the hotel was overall a clean, modern hotel with a pretty good breakfast buffet.

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When I planned our trip I wanted to eat dinner at Ellendale's, but it was a little pricier than what we wanted to spend.  We ended up looking for something at the last minute using Urban Spoon.  The hubs was pretty persistent on eating BBQ.  We found something local, B & C Melrose BBQ, that was pretty good and less than $20 for the two of us.  After dinner, we had tickets to a 7:00 show at the Grand Ole Opry.  I recommend getting there early.  We arrived at 6:00 and had plenty of time to visit the Opry shop and take our pictures.  Tickets for the show were $45 each.  I’m not a huge country fan, but there is nothing like the opry, and I think that the cost was well worth it.  This was definitely the best part of our trip.

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The following day, we visited downtown Nashville.  We walked the river, saw some historic sights downtown, visited Music Row, walked the stars in the Walk of Fame Park, saw way to many cowboy boots, and had some fantastic fudge.  If you're really into country music, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is reccomended.  It wasn’t really something that we were in to, so we didn’t spend the money on it. 

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We try to look and see if we are near places that have been featured on Food Network when we travel. Hog Heaven, in downtown Nashville, is literally a little BBQ shack by Centennial Park that has been featured on "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" and "The Best Thing I Ever Ate". The meat was excellent, and I loved that we could just grab our food and eat in the park!

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Before heading back home, we walked the ground of neighboring Centennial Park.  This park is unique because it is home to the Parthenon. We were originally going to stay in Nashville two nights, but two save money we decided to leave Saturday evening instead.  That proved to be a wise move, due to the late spring snow storm that was awaiting us in Indy on Sunday;)

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OUR TRIP VIA INSTAGRAM

Had a lovely afternoon visiting historic Franklin, TN with my love! Time to get ready for dinner and then a show at the Grand Ole Opry:)



Ate lunch at the cutest little deli today in Franklin, TN. Very country chic. Great place to grab fresh homemade soups, salads and sandwiches! #franklinmerchantiledeli #tennessee #weekendgetaway

Found a pretty good BBQ place for dinner. You know you've found descent BBQ when it's served on a disposable plate;) For real...this stuff is meant to be yummy and messy, not fancy and pretty:) #b&cmelrose #tennessee #weekendgetaway

Getting ready to go in:) #thegrandoleopry #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway

The only names I recognize for tonight's show are Ricky Skaggs and Alan Jackson. #thegrandoleopry #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway

 

I'm not a big country fan, but this is pretty cool. Such a beautiful, historic building! When I think of Nashville, this is what I think of:) #thegrandoleopry #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway

Again, I'm not a huge country fan, but listening to Alan Jackson sing live was pretty surreal. Definitely the best part of the night! Was so happy he did two of my favorites in his song selection tonight, "Remember When" and "Drive".

 

Had so much fun with him tonight! So glad we decided to get tickets to this! #thegrandoleopry #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway

 

This is the coldest it has ever been for our anniversary weekend. Usually my boots are put away by now, but yesterday was definitely a boot wearin' kind of day....even though we were 5 hrs south of home. Have I mentioned #imoverwinter yet? I'm pretty sure I have:/

Had a great time visiting downtown Nashville today! I could have done without the cold dreary weather that must have followed us all the way from Indy, but other than that it was a good trip. #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway

 #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway #hogheaven #bbq

 

#nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway #centennialpark