I've been to Nashville before, when I was a college freshman on choir tour. My primary memory is of being quite sick and having my homestay folks bring me to their son's pediatrician, who diagnosed me with bronchitis and prescribed antibiotics. This turns out to have been a good thing, since the choir later got snowed in for a week in Asheville, North Carolina and if I didn't already have those antibiotics, that would have been even less enjoyable than it already was!
So now, more than two decades later, I'm back. My husband and I are both not particular fans of country music, so rather than doing the Grand Old Opry or other more country-oriented activities, we visited the Belle Meade Plantation and Cheekwood Estate and Gardens.
Belle Meade used to be a large plantation specifically dedicated to breeding racehorses. The current property is much smaller than it used to be. Original buildings include the Mansion, the Carriage House and Stables, the Dairy, the Gardener's House, the Smoke House, and the Harding Cabin, a very early building on the property.
The grounds were mostly open for exploration and I enjoyed getting to learn about some of the folks who had been involved with the plantation. Everything was easily walkable with pleasant trees, including Southern Magnolias, Black Walnut, and a ubiquitous tree with small purple blooms, but not much in the way of leaves. They're everywhere, but I haven't yet been able to learn what they are.
There were two tour options, the Mansion Tour, including the family's parts of the mansion, and Journey to Jubilee, which "focuses on the African-American experience during and after slavery." We took the latter tour. Our guide was named Jasmine and she was incredibly knowledgeable about not just the Belle Meade family, but about the history, politics and economics surrounding slavery. We were very impressed with her presentation. She didn't sugar-coat things, and asked a lot of questions designed to make folks think--including in ways that I hadn't really considered. After emancipation, for example, what did freedom look like? What about vagrancy laws? What about using the penal system as a way to maintain the social status-quo?
We also learned about lots of things in the past that could kill you--like arsenic in the green paint in the original wallpaper in the Mansion, and the doctor who prescribed running up stairs in a corset and smoking "asthma cigarettes" to help cure asthma. Did not work...
One of the coolest things to learn about Belle Meade is that most of the best racehorses in past many decades can trace their lineage to Bonnie Scotland, a sire horse who was purchased by General W E Harding of Belle Meade in `857. There was a graph showing the descendants from Bonnie Scotland which included Secretariat, Seabiscuit, Seattle Slew, American Pharoah...and more. So that was quite nifty!
Next we traveled a few more miles down a lovely avenue among quite grand homes to Cheekwood. Cheekwood is a larger estate on a hill. It has several gardens (which were lovely--though mostly not in bloom yet), the Estate perched on the very top of the hill, and some other smaller buildings. The estate house building began in `1929-completed in 1932. It's quite grand--much larger than the Belle Meade manson, and outfitted in high style. There are also art exhibits inside. There was a fascinating woven rug wall-hanging made to look like it was melting and stretching, including spaces which were not woven straight-through, but had holes straight through to the wall. That was our favorite piece.
At the base of one of the gardens is a lovely little model train set-up amid a number of large tree stumps. The train cars were probably the size of a small cat, and ran on tracks through the trunks, over bridges overhead, and everything was decorated with nature-themed art, including giant mushrooms, bugs, and designs made of rocks or wood.
There was also a Japanese garden, a dogwood garden (which we're glad was *not* in bloom as husband is wildly allergic), a terrace garden, and water garden.
The warmth and humidity of the day finally started to surrender to a lovely brisk breeze and a few sprinkles. We grabbed some nibbles at the beer garden on the way out, where a country music group was performing, including an instrumental version of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."
Back to the hotel fairly early, and then we settled in for the evening's exciting weather, including Severe Thunderstorm Warnings and Tornado Warnings on the TV. So far the tornado warnings have been just north of us, but we did get some amazing sideway rain and waves in the parking lot. Didn't see much in the way of any lightning, though.
We're on the road early tomorrow--when temperatures should have dropped about 20 degrees. Looking forward to some cooler and, hopefully, less humid weather. And fewer tornado warnings!
Welcome to Nashville!
So now, more than two decades later, I'm back. My husband and I are both not particular fans of country music, so rather than doing the Grand Old Opry or other more country-oriented activities, we visited the Belle Meade Plantation and Cheekwood Estate and Gardens.
Belle Meade used to be a large plantation specifically dedicated to breeding racehorses. The current property is much smaller than it used to be. Original buildings include the Mansion, the Carriage House and Stables, the Dairy, the Gardener's House, the Smoke House, and the Harding Cabin, a very early building on the property.
The grounds were mostly open for exploration and I enjoyed getting to learn about some of the folks who had been involved with the plantation. Everything was easily walkable with pleasant trees, including Southern Magnolias, Black Walnut, and a ubiquitous tree with small purple blooms, but not much in the way of leaves. They're everywhere, but I haven't yet been able to learn what they are.
There were two tour options, the Mansion Tour, including the family's parts of the mansion, and Journey to Jubilee, which "focuses on the African-American experience during and after slavery." We took the latter tour. Our guide was named Jasmine and she was incredibly knowledgeable about not just the Belle Meade family, but about the history, politics and economics surrounding slavery. We were very impressed with her presentation. She didn't sugar-coat things, and asked a lot of questions designed to make folks think--including in ways that I hadn't really considered. After emancipation, for example, what did freedom look like? What about vagrancy laws? What about using the penal system as a way to maintain the social status-quo?
We also learned about lots of things in the past that could kill you--like arsenic in the green paint in the original wallpaper in the Mansion, and the doctor who prescribed running up stairs in a corset and smoking "asthma cigarettes" to help cure asthma. Did not work...
One of the coolest things to learn about Belle Meade is that most of the best racehorses in past many decades can trace their lineage to Bonnie Scotland, a sire horse who was purchased by General W E Harding of Belle Meade in `857. There was a graph showing the descendants from Bonnie Scotland which included Secretariat, Seabiscuit, Seattle Slew, American Pharoah...and more. So that was quite nifty!
Next we traveled a few more miles down a lovely avenue among quite grand homes to Cheekwood. Cheekwood is a larger estate on a hill. It has several gardens (which were lovely--though mostly not in bloom yet), the Estate perched on the very top of the hill, and some other smaller buildings. The estate house building began in `1929-completed in 1932. It's quite grand--much larger than the Belle Meade manson, and outfitted in high style. There are also art exhibits inside. There was a fascinating woven rug wall-hanging made to look like it was melting and stretching, including spaces which were not woven straight-through, but had holes straight through to the wall. That was our favorite piece.
At the base of one of the gardens is a lovely little model train set-up amid a number of large tree stumps. The train cars were probably the size of a small cat, and ran on tracks through the trunks, over bridges overhead, and everything was decorated with nature-themed art, including giant mushrooms, bugs, and designs made of rocks or wood.
There was also a Japanese garden, a dogwood garden (which we're glad was *not* in bloom as husband is wildly allergic), a terrace garden, and water garden.
The warmth and humidity of the day finally started to surrender to a lovely brisk breeze and a few sprinkles. We grabbed some nibbles at the beer garden on the way out, where a country music group was performing, including an instrumental version of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."
Back to the hotel fairly early, and then we settled in for the evening's exciting weather, including Severe Thunderstorm Warnings and Tornado Warnings on the TV. So far the tornado warnings have been just north of us, but we did get some amazing sideway rain and waves in the parking lot. Didn't see much in the way of any lightning, though.
We're on the road early tomorrow--when temperatures should have dropped about 20 degrees. Looking forward to some cooler and, hopefully, less humid weather. And fewer tornado warnings!
Welcome to Nashville!
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