Destination:
Tennessee

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

If you are a visitor to Nashville, chances are you are there because you are a country music fan. That being the case the best place to begin your visit is the not-to-be-missed Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in the Downtown entertainment district. The main permanent exhibit, Sing Me Back Home, is a journey through the history of country Music, drawing on the museum's rich collection of historical costumes, memorabilia, instruments, photographs, manuscripts and other objects. Live performances, interactive exhibits, and lots of great music supplement these artefacts. Among the exhibits are Elvis Presley's gold-leaf covered Cadillac, Emmy Lou Harris' jewelled cowboy boots and Bob Dylan's autographed lyric sheets. Live music is played in the atrium and digital film presentations are offered in the theatre. Visitors can also watch museum archivists and restoration experts at work, and study a vast wall displaying chart-topping gold and platinum country records.

Ryman Auditorium

This National Historic Landmark in downtown Nashville is regarded as the founding home of country music, having been the performance venue for the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974. The theatre was originally built in 1892 as a gospel tabernacle and served as an evangelical meeting hall. A stage was built for the Grand Ole Opry broadcasts and such great names as Sarah Bernhardt, Patsy Cline and Elvis Presley trod the boards here in their time. Today the Grand Ole Opry has moved on to a new theatre, but the Ryman Auditorium has been restored and is still a popular performance venue where concerts are held regularly. By day the theatre acts as a museum, which visually portrays the stories of its rich history with a series of displays and exhibits.

Grand Ole Opry

The home of the world-famous country music show, the Grand Ole Opry, is now in Opryland Drive in a vast 4,400 seat auditorium which is part of the Opryland resort complex north of Nashville's city centre. From here the world's longest running radio show is still broadcast on the Nashville station WSM (650 on the AM dial), featuring new stars, superstars and legends of country and bluegrass music performing live on stage. No visit to Nashville is complete without attending a show at the Grand Ole Opry, which has been going strong on the airwaves since 1925.

Belle Meade Plantation

One popular Nashville attraction that is not music-related is the Belle Meade Plantation, known as 'the queen of Tennessee plantations', boasting an 1853 Greek Revival mansion that has been carefully restored to show its original elegance. The authentic Civil War bullet holes that riddle its columns are still visible. Among the outbuildings that survive on the 12-hectare (30-acre) site is one of the oldest houses in Tennessee, a log cabin built in 1790. There is also a carriage house, visitor centre, tearoom and gift shop. The Belle Meade estate was one of America's first and finest thoroughbred breeding farms. Tours of the antebellum furnished mansion and grounds are given by guides dressed in period costume.

Parthenon

The centrepiece of Nashville's Centennial Park is the world's only full-scale replica of the Parthenon temple in Athens, Greece, complete with a re-creation of the 42ft (13m) high statue of Athena that stood outside the temple in ancient Greece. The Parthenon was originally built for Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition, it's plaster decoration being direct casts of the Parthenon Marbles and original sculptures which adorned the pediments of the Greek Parthenon that was built in 438 BC. The building today serves as Nashville's art museum, with a permanent collection that highlights 19th and 20th century American artists. A variety of temporary shows and exhibitions are also presented.

Tennessee State Museum

The interesting Tennessee State Museum is one of the largest of its kind in the nation with a huge array of permanent exhibits telling the story of Tennessee, starting out 15,000 years ago in prehistoric times and culminating in the early 20th century. Prominent historic figures are highlighted, like former US President Andrew Jackson, Daniel Boone and legendary frontiersman Davy Crockett. Exhibits include displays of furniture, silverware, weapons, uniforms, battle flags, quilts and artworks from the civil war period. The museum also features reproductions of a 19th-century gristmill, and 18th-century print shop, a frontier cabin, antebellum parlour and a Victorian painting gallery.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

East of Nashville on the border between Tennessee and North Carolina lies the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, covering more than one and a half million acres; the largest national park in the eastern United States. The park is a designated International Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage Site drawing millions of visitors every year to enjoy the panoramic views, tumbling mountain streams, uninterrupted forest and historic buildings it encompasses. The main route to the park is via Knoxville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, all worth a visit in their own right. Inside the park itself there are more than 270 miles (435km) of road through the ancient mountains, which are home to a variety of plant and animal life, many of the species unique and rare. The park offers numerous outdoor recreational pursuits and offers a glimpse into the lives of early southern Appalachian farming families, boasting 77 historic structures like log cabins, barns, churches and gristmills.

Chattanooga

The fourth largest city in Tennessee, Chattanooga is near the south-east border with Georgia, lies at the junction of four interstate highways, is easily accessible and well worth a visit. The city has brought about a renaissance in recent years, redeveloping its riverfront and downtown area to offer an extensive greenway system and river walk that takes strollers through the historic art district and several beautiful parks. Main attractions in the city for tourists are the Tennessee Aquarium, Civil War battlefields, the African American Museum and a Creative Discovery Museum. The main destination for visitors, though, is Lookout Mountain, offering its historic Incline Railway, the steepest passenger railway in the world that offers panoramic views of the city and the Great Smoky Mountains 100 miles (161km) away. Lookout Mountain is also home to The Battles for Chattanooga Museum, Ruby Falls (a waterfall that plunges 145ft (44m) inside the mountain), and Rick City Gardens from where it is possible to view seven states on a clear day.

Graceland

Memphis' biggest attraction is the second-most visited house in the United States after the White House. The Graceland Mansion and its attendant buildings and attractions were home to the 'King of Rock 'n Roll', Elvis Presley, who died in 1977. Thousands of fans of all ages still make pilgrimages here to tour the house, grounds and visit his grave. Mansion tours are offered with audio players describing the rooms and memorabilia. Also open for viewing is the Elvis Presley Automobile Museum housing the star's renowned 1955 pink Cadillac, a collection of Elvis' personal belongings, and a re-creation of an airport terminal where the singer's two private jets are on display. As of March 2006, Graceland joins the White House, Mount Vernon and Monticello as a National Historic Landmark, the USA's highest designation for historic properties, usually accorded to the homes of American presidents. Long live the King.

Sun Studio

Visitors who come to Memphis to pay homage to Elvis Presley inevitably are also keen to visit the legendary recording studio in Union Avenue where the King of rock 'n roll's career, and that of numerous other stars, began. The story is that Elvis first walked into the Sun Studio in the early 1950s to record a song as a birthday present for his mother. The rest is musical history, now enshrined in the studio that also launched the likes of Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis on the road to stardom. Visitors to the studio can hear outtakes from recording sessions, touch Elvis' first microphone, view a great deal of memorabilia and listen to anecdotes. Alongside the studio is the Sun Studio Café, a diner that retains its 1950s style and is still a favourite musician's hangout.

Memphis Rock n' Soul Museum

A collection of rare recordings, vintage films and musician interviews along with photographs, and interactive exhibits makes up the 'Social Crossroads' exhibition put together by the Smithsonian Institution. The exhibition fills seven galleries and covers the development of American popular music over the past century, from gospel to blues and rock, with exhibits such as costumes and guitars from performers like Elvis Presley, Ike Turner's piano and B.B. King's 'Lucille' guitar. An audio guide is available and takes visitors on a tour of the music that was the biggest influence on culture and lifestyle in the 20th century.

Pink Palace Museum

The Pink Palace, a soubriquet bestowed on this elaborate pink marble Memphis mansion by the locals, was intended to be a luxury home for the founder of the Piggy Wiggly chain of supermarkets, Clarence Saunders, when he began building it back in the 1920s. Before the ostentatious mansion that dominates Central Avenue was completed Saunders declared bankruptcy, and the homestead ended up in the hands of the city of Memphis for use as a museum. The Pink Palace Museum is devoted to culture and natural history, it's origins preserved in the form of a replica of the first self-service grocery store in the country, Saunders' Piggly Wiggly. Visitors can also explore dioramas, exhibits and audio-visual displays that trace Memphis' development from the arrival of the Spanish explorers through the Civil War and yellow fever epidemics. Dinosaurs and fossils also feature, as does an excellent medical-history section. The museum includes a planetarium and an Imax theatre.

Mud Island River Park

Mud Island in the Mississippi River offers a fascinating insight into the famous river with a series of fun and informative attractions. The island emerged in the river in 1900 and was turned into a 52-acre park. Main attractions on the island are the Mississippi River Museum, an amphitheatre where touring acts perform during summer, a huge swimming pool and a display of the Memphis Belle, a famous B-17 bomber from World War II. The highlight of a visit to Mud Island, however, is the unique and fascinating River Walk, a scaled down replica of the lower Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois to New Orleans in Louisiana. The River walk is five blocks long and represents a journey of 1,000 miles (1,609km).

Memphis Botanic Garden

The Memphis Botanic Gardens are a sensory delight through which to stroll at any time of year. The 96-acre site at Audubon Park, in the east of the city comprises 22 formal gardens each focussing on a theme or species, ranging from a tranquil Japanese garden to the magnificent Municipal Rose Garden, an organic vegetable garden and a tropical conservatory. Highlights are the Ketchum Memorial Iris Garden, at its best in April and May, and a Sensory Garden designed to be enjoyed by the disabled.

Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Stax Records was not only the most successful soul music studio in history - recording the likes of Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, and The Staple Singers - but also a cultural phenomenon, that furthered the ends of social integration at a time when segregation was still a grim reality in the USA. Although Stax Records was forced into involuntary bankruptcy at the end of 1975, its legacy lives on, in the form of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Located at the original site of Stax Records, the museum pays tribute to all of the artists who recorded there, with a rare and astonishing collection of more than two thousand interactive exhibits, films, artefacts, items of memorabilia, and galleries.

Knoxville

The third-largest city in Tennessee, Knoxville - although not as illustrious as Memphis or Nashville - is well worth a visit. Serving as Tennessee's capital from its admission into the Union in 1796 until 1817, early reports of Knoxville described it as an "alternately quiet and rowdy river town." Modern-day visitors to Knoxville - just three hours east of Nashville on Interstate 40 - have plenty of attractions to choose from. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a stone's throw away, while downtown Knoxville - the venue for the 1982 World's Fair, which brought 11 million visitors to this compelling city on the banks of the Tennessee River - boasts the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, and the historic Tennessee Theatre. Knoxville is also home to the University of Tennessee: if at all possible, try get a ticket to a UT Vols football game. Their fanatical, orange-clad supporters are a sight to behold on game-days; filling the 100,000-seat Neyland Stadium with ease, and raising a cacophony that can be heard right around the city. The downtown area known as the Jackson Avenue Warehouse District - immortalised by Cormac McCarthy's sprawling novel Suttree- is an invigorating place to walk around, full of soot-blackened buildings, jazz bars, and funky home-style restaurants.