Fri - 17 Apr/15

First task today was to unhook the car for our visit to Nashville.

Our next job was to locate a DIY car wash to clean under the hood which was still coated with mud from our little adventure a few days ago.

Next we headed to downtown Nashville's Music City Row. We arrived before 11 a.m. to find most of the restaurants still closed. We checked:

Coyote Ugly which opens at 11 am:

Dick's Last Resort also opens at 11 am:

The Melting Pot  (Fondues) only opens at 4 pm:

Rodizio Grill was opening. A Brazilian Rotisserie is where they continuously bring various meats on skewers and slice cuts of your choice right at your table. We passed as we wanted more of a light lunch than a meat buffet.

B.B. King's Blues Club was open. We've been to the original in Memphis year's ago. We started to go in but the music was so loud it was painful. (...and I'm partially deaf!)

The Country and Western flavour of Nashville's music scene could be seen everywhere!

Tourists of all ages - many in Western attire. (Boots or hats or both)

We continued down the street:

Horsing Around (Wild Horse Saloon):

Hundred were waiting for the Hard Rock Cafe to open.

Some were cruising in the "Nashville Party Barge"

While others were "Pedaling their Ass" (grin) down the street. We saw 4 of these conveyances with about 8 tourists on each within a few minutes. A few got to  "Freeload" on a rear bench seat. That would be my choice.

Of course, there was Elvis!

We had thought of taking the Nashville "Hop on - Hop off" Tour trolley. We had 2 hours parking on the street meter. This was the limit allowed - no do overs. When we discovered that parking was $26 for 4 hours at the parking lot at the tour booth we cancelled that thought.

Loud music - often live - filled the streets. We decided to get a Pita and a Smoothie for lunch; however,  Charlotte had to cup her ears to hear the "Pita Artist".

After lunch we returned to the car and headed for the Parthenon (in Nashville, not Greece). Although we call Nashville “Music City, USA” (a phrase adopted by its Chamber of Commerce in 1978), the city also calls itself “The Athens of the South,”

The Parthenon, just west of downtown Nashville, is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece. It was built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Today the Parthenon, which functions as an art museum, stands as the centerpiece of Centennial Park, a large public park surrounding the edifice.

In the 1920s the Parthenon was rebuilt as a full-scale replica of the ancient Parthenon with one large exception. The colossal statue of Athena from ancient times was not in this replica. The statue of Athena Parthenos, on the second floor, was constructed from 1982 to 1990.

It stood in Nashville’s Parthenon as a plain, white statue for 12 years. In 2002 the Parthenon gilded Athena with Alan LeQuire and master gilder Lou Reed in charge of the project. The gilding project took less than 4 months and makes Athena appear that much closer to the ancient Athena Parthenos. In addition to gilding, the project included painted details on her face, wardrobe and shield. Despite appearing a little garish it has been reconstructed to careful scholarly standards representing the lost original,

Athena is cuirassed and helmeted, carries a shield on her left arm and a small 6 feet high statue of Nike (Victory) in her right palm.

An example showed the stages of the gilding process. Athena stands 42 feet high and is gilted with more than 8 pounds of gold leaf;

There is an equally colossal serpent that rears its head between Athena and her shield. (Nice Asp - grin). Decorations were painted in colors as close to the presumed original as possible, This replica serves as a monument to what is considered the pinnacle of classical Greek architecture circa 400 years BC.

Plaster replicas in the East Room of the Main Hall are direct plaster casts of the sculptures which adorned the pediments of the original Parthenon in Athens. They were made from fragments housed in the British Museum in London, UK and at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece.

Parrish, the security guard, helped make our visit more enjoyable by suggesting we take the elevator to the second floor first (where we could take pictures) and then descend to the first floor after.

We did just that! No pictures are allowed on the first level. The internet was helpful for this.

Special Exhibits are regularly rotated. Currently on Display: WAR WOUNDS paintings by Dane Carder. 

The permanent part of the Art Museum comprises 63 paintings from an anonymous donor who was conditionally revealed, upon his death, to be James M, Cowan of Aurora, IL.

We returned to the RV for the night to relax and watch TV as I planned our next step in our homeward travels.