We went for a short walk after we did the Grand Ole Opry tour - we had been recommended to look at the adjacent hotel, which was abolutely fabulous with its own indoor gardens and even boat rides along the internal waterway. The nearest thing we'd ever seen to it was the Venetian in Las Vegas - but this even surpassed that. Here's just a brief glimpse:
We then went back to our hotel to dump our car and use Lyft's excellent service again to take us on the short ride downtown. First stop was a tour of the Ryman Auditorium, home to the Grand Ole Opry until the mid 70's. The place is steeped in history and although the Opry don't use it every week nowadays, there are lots of gigs there - all the top rock and country stars have appeared there, desperate to experience its history and wonderful acoustics. The "Mother Church" as it is affectionately known:
It was then a question of hitting the bars and listening to some music.
Our brief Nashville trip was now over and we headed off the following morning (Friday) for Memphis, crossing another time zone in to USA Central Time on the way. We had one brief stop on the road - at a Civil War site at Parker's Crossroads:
Our hotel in Memphis - Springhill Suites (not Springfield as I said in an earlier post) - had an excellent location. We had a view of the Mississippi and one of the bridges from our room and we were able to walk along the riverbank to lively Beale Street:
We arrived at Elvis' statue:
Followed by BB King's bench right outside his store:
We had dinner, listened to some music, then off to bed.
The plan the following morning was to walk round to Sun Studios. According to the rough map on their web site, it was only just round the corner from our hotel:
The "2-3 minutes from Beale St" that they refer to above was obviously in a fast car, not walking. I had compounded the felony by misreading the address as 106 Union Avenue, when it was, in fact, 706 Union Avenue. We got there eventually - 15 hot and sweaty minutes later.
The tour was great - it really did feel magic being in the room where rock 'n' roll history was made. They still keep the original microphone that Elvis - and many others - used back in the 50's and I tried to throw an Elvis shape:
Perhaps Jo could do better on the vintage drums, recently used by U2:
Now time for the outside photo:
That's enough for now - I'll finish off our Memphis trip in the next post.
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