Nashville: Getting there & around

Orientation

Straddling the Cumberland River in northern central Tennessee, Nashville lies midway between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, smack in the heart of the eastern US. From the state capitol - the city's highest point - a busy, compact downtown of narrow one-way streets and high-rise office buildings slopes eastward to Broadway, Nashville's central artery. Southeast of the capitol along 2nd Ave and Broadway, the renovation of historic commercial buildings has carved a downtown tourist destination called 'the District'. Music Row, the other main commercial district, is less than 1.5km (1mi) southwest of downtown.

In the rest of sprawling Nashville, it's hard to pinpoint what constitutes a neighborhood, but there are a few that are easily discernible. East Nashville is a vibrant enclave with an annual Tomato Art festival. Elliston Place is a compact stretch of bohemian alternative culture about half a kilometer west of downtown and north of West End Ave. South of this is the Vanderbilt University campus. East of Elliston Place and abutting the university, Centennial Park is the site of the mock Parthenon leftover from the Centennial Exposition of 1897. This whole area is known as West End, and it centers on a cluster of restaurants along Broadway and West End Ave on either side of the university; you might also hear it referred to as 'around Vanderbilt'.

Tourists rarely set foot in downtown Nashville, confining their visit to the massive Opryland complex a few kilometers northeast of town. Here, the prefabricated Music Valley holds a tourist ghetto of budget motels, franchise restaurants and outlet stores. The airport is 13km (8mi) directly east of downtown. Greyhound buses stop downtown.

Getting There

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Getting Around

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