Opryland & Cheekwood

After our stay at The Greenbrier, we flew from West Virginia to Nashville, Tennessee to meet up with our tour. We arrived in the city a day early, so we had some time to do a few things on our own. Last time we were in Nashville, we stayed in the heart of downtown and covered all the country music landmarks, this time we stayed right next to the Grand Ole Opry and the Opryland Hotel. The Opryland Hotel had been on my Nashville to do list so I was so excited to finally get to see it! 

We began our day with getting breakfast at Cascades, located in one of the three large atriums. It was like being on a tropical get away! It was more beautiful than I had even imagined it would be, and the rooms of the hotel open up right into these tropical oases.

We were given a perfect table, right next to the water.

I was excited to see a breakfast version of shrimp and grits on the menu, it was buttery, southern food heaven.

After breakfast, we spent some time exploring more of the hotel, and strolling through the other two atriums.

This is the Garden Conservatory

The Delta is the largest of the atriums, and it might be my favorite. I loved this restaurant modeled after a southern plantation, with it's patio of leather, tufted arm chairs.

In keeping with the garden theme, after our time at the Opryland Hotel, we drove a little ways out of the city to Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. These gardens are one of Nashville's most visited cultural attraction. The building below is a well known art museum that is part of the Cheekwood estate, sadly it was closed during our visit.

We happen to hit the gardens right as all their spring flowers were ending but before any of the summer flowers started blooming, so I feel like I will need to go back one day to truly see these gardens at their finest.

We did love the vast green fields and gardens, Tennessee is so lush.

I have never seen bamboo in it's early stage of the growing process, I was fascinate by all these brand new baby bamboo shoots.

Japanese gardens never disappoint 

After exploring the Cheekwood Gardens, we headed back to the Opryland Hotel to get dinner. There are so many restaurants in the hotel to choose from, it was hard choosing just one, but in the end we that we would try Ravello, an Italian Restaurant in the Garden Conservatory.

We were seated at a beautiful table with gorgeous views of the atrium.

Our meal was absolutely outstanding, starting with the complimentary bread and marinara dipping sauce, I would of been fine having just that for my entire meal.

We got crispy risotto for the table as a starter, and it was delicious.

I got chicken piccata as my main course and it was lovely, it was much more fresh and light than most American-Italian meals, I throughly enjoyed it.

After dinner we headed next door to the Grand Ole Opry!

I didn't take as many pictures as the last time I was there, CLICK HERE to see 

photos from that visit, it was the Opry's 91st birthday weekend.

Tonight's headliner was Parmalee, a country band made up of two brothers, their cousin, and best friend. I am not super familiar with their music, but I knew a song or two.

The night ended with Chris Janson, I had seen him when he opened for Tim McGraw at the MGM Grand, so I was looking forward to his performance. He is super silly and knows how to get the crowd pumped up, he always puts on a fun show. Chris has played at the Opry more than 150 times, which I'm pretty sure is some kind of record.