The first place that I thought of to go was what I believe must be the most famous landmark in Nashville: the Grand Old Opry. It was the top-rated site according to Tripadvisor, although there are actually a whole bunch of other sites on that list which have to do with country music. Not being the biggest fan of country music, admittedly, I figured it would do to visit just one of those places: the most famous of them, and the one that brought pretty much all country music together. And that is what we did.
After that, the main place that I wanted to visit was the Centennial Park, and especially the Parthenon, which is an actual, full-sized replica of the original Parthenon atop the mountain in Athens, Greece. Centennial Park does not even show up until about number twelve on the list, but it must have been fans of country music who were doing the voting. The other places that made the list, but which we did not particularly want to visit, were a couple of places associated with President Andrew Jackson.
However, Centennial Park is a wonderful park. The Parthenon was one of the places that I had long wanted to visit, but the park itself is quite peaceful and seemed to me to be a great park in the middle of the city. If I lived in this city, it would be easy to imagine finding a way to get here as often as possible. Again, it is a nice place, with a pond or lake, and a nice mixture of trees and lawn, with the Parthenon more or less in the center and tying everything all together. Oh, and also, we had a huge meal that we went to at the recommendation of the car rental teller, who said that this place was where the locals went, because it was not particularly touristy, and because it was that good. Indeed, I got the moderate chicken, and that was plenty hot for me. Going in, my assumption was that I tended to like spices, and had more of a tolerance for it than most people did. I had eaten the “Suicidal” Buffalo Wings at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, after all, and was able to handle it. But after this, knowing that there were three or four more stages of hotness of the wings, I might have to rethink that.
Before long, we found that it was getting a bit later than we wanted it to be in the afternoon. I had made hotel reservations for a city in northern Tennessee that had looked quite attractive on the internet. It was Paris, and they even had their own smaller scale (obviously) Eiffel Tower, right there in a park in Tennessee. The downtown sounded like it was lively and had good food options, as well, which intrigued me. So, we left Nashville, feeling good about our visit and liking the city, and headed towards Paris.
We drove through some very rural areas, including some areas where there were more woods and fields than homes and towns. It was nice, although once we got close, and especially once we got into the city itself, it was difficult not to be a little dismayed at just how small this place was. At some point during my research (and honestly, I cannot even begin to recall where or how I first heard about this pace), the impression had formed that this surely was a cool, small city, with the key word being city. But it turned out to be more of a small town, than anything else, truth be told.
Now, we did pass the Eiffel Tower along the way, and since that was the most famous site here, and the one that intrigued me the most, admittedly, we obviously were going to return. But first, we checked in. Our hotel also was running with the Eiffel Tower theme, which was evident throughout the town of Paris. They really hype it up so much that you would think that this is the real Eiffel Tower.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the Eiffel Tower there, and took plenty of pictures. It was well-illuminated, and in fact, looked quite spectacular for a small town, kind of in the middle of nowhere. However, it was not just outside of a city, or anything, but was right next to what I would assume was the high school, or something. In any case, it was the congregating place of local high school kids, particularly those with souped up pick-up trucks, and maybe a sports car or two. They kept driving by, often slowly and obviously doing nothing to disguise the fact that they were staring at us. Hell, it almost felt like they were staring us down.
My son started laughing, but I told him that there was really nothing funny about it. Seeing teenagers driving around in circles, over and over again, is to me incredibly depressing. And that was what they were doing, driving from one nearby parking lot to another, in this case, the one near the school and, of course, the miniature Eiffel Tower. They clearly seemed not to like us too much, and our presence seemed to bother them. In fact, there was a point when it seemed like one of them was following us as we left. I made a left turn instead of the right, which was where our hotel was located, and the kid disappeared. We saw him again, though, just a few minutes later, when we passed again. So I made a point of parking very near our hotel door, with hopes that one of us would wake up if we heard anything suspicious. Last thing that I needed was for the car to be scratched up by some resentful local teen.
Nothing happened, though. We left Paris without incident. And that left turn that I had mad? It actually showed the downtown part of Paris that I had seen. Again, it hardly qualified as a small city, with the downtown being perhaps three blocks by three blocks. However, it had been a little unsettling the night before, and more than a little depressing, and not just the kids. Other than the Eiffel Tower of Tennessee, and the constant, and rather surprising Eiffel Tower symbols all around town), Paris seemed to me to be what I would imagine to be a typical town of the Deep South. It is a rural area, and despite this being a small town, it is probably the biggest town around in any direction for many, many miles. It was an experience, and one I could appreciate for that reason. Also, I had gotten what I came for, taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower, some of which came out very nicely, actually.
That said, I was pretty much ready to go when we woke up the next morning.
And that is the summary of our first day on the trip.
Departing Newark International Airport
Grand Old Opry, Nashville
Centennial Park, Nashville
Eiffel Tower of Paris, Tennessee
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