Nashville Trolley Tour

Thursday, May 26^th

After traveling on Tuesday and spending Wednesday in and around Lebanon (the small town near our campground), we headed into Nashville on Thursday. We took a Trolley tour around the city. We could get on and off as much as we wanted to, but we only got off at the Parthenon. Since it was located away from the other attractions we wanted to spend more time at, we decided to see it more thoroughly so we would not have to drive to that part of town later.

We boarded the trolley at the Hard Rock Café. While we were waiting to leave, we watched two men loading and unloading Elvis statues. Later we saw these statues around town welcoming people into different establishments. The hands sticking up out of the truck bed belong to an Elvis that will be unloaded elsewhere.

The log cabin-era structures are remnants of the original Nashville settlement. The stadium is the home of the NFL Tennessee Titans.

Bi-Centennial Park was created to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of TN becoming a state. It is situated in front of the capital building and includes an amazing timeline of TN history. The timeline was created on black granite and runs for 400 ft along the perimeter of the park. Within the park, each TN county has a time capsule buried in the ground under a round cap with the County's name on it. These time capsules will be opened at the 300^th anniversary celebration in 2096.

The full-size replica of the Greek Parthenon sets in Centennial Park. Initially, the structure was built of paper mache as a temporary building as part of the 100^th celebration of TN statehood. The building choice was made in honor of Athens, Greece, one of Nashville's sister cities. Since the building was so popular, the city built a permanent structure to replace the temporary one. The two 7.5 ton bronze doors are the largest bronze doors in the world. And, unlike the wooden ones on the Parthenon in Greece that require several men to open them, these doors can be opened by a single individual. Inside the Parthenon sits a statue of the Greek goddess Athena that is 41 foot, 10" tall and weighs about 12 ton. The skin on the statue is made of ivory and the clothing is colored with gold leaf. The statue of Nike, the Goddess of Victory, in Athena's hand is 6' 4" tall.

The statues on the outside top of the Parthenon are full-sized and three-dimensional. Recreations of the Greek ruins of some of these statures line the halls on either side of the Athena statue. The tiles showing the blue rectangular decorations are ceiling tiles above Athena's head.

We spent about an hour at the Parthenon and then reboarded the trolley for the rest of our tour. We went by the Vanderbilt University stadium with Ted Turner's restaurant showing in the forefront. We also went by other Vanderbilt buildings.

Throughout the city of Nashville, we saw repeated evidence that we were in "The Music City," such as guitar shaped ads, the piano sculpture, the dancing-children sculpture, and Elvis statues.

The castle-like Union Station has been turned into a hotel. The two little dogs on the motorcycle were wearing motorcycle glasses and perching for photos.