Sadie and I recently spent some time in Nashville, Tennessee after the
BlogPaws conference. I want to start this off by saying that it was raining like crazy for most of the two days we had to spend sightseeing in Nashville, so that seriously limited what we could do with a dog. Rain will cause that problem no matter what place you’re visiting. But Sadie and I still managed to have a great time and I feel like we saw quite a few interesting sites.
The first stop on my tour of Nashville was Centennial Park to see the Parthenon. I was an ancient history major in college, so I was really excited to see a complete recreation of the Ancient Greek temple, the Parthenon, in all its glory. Sadie was not allowed inside, but we walked all around the building, sat for a while among the giant columns, and took some great photos. Plus the Parthenon is in the middle of great park with a small lake, so it’s a beautiful place to visit.
Next we drove over to the heart of Nashville, the area called the District. This is the main tourist part of Nashville, with lots of cowboy and country music themed restaurants, bars, and shops. Here we found Riverfront Park with the historic Fort Nashborough. We walked in the park along the river, where you can look across and see the stadium of the Tennessee Titans. We looked around Fort Nashborough, a wooden recreation of the first settlement of Nashville in the 1700s.
A few of the stores in the area were dog friendly. One boot store in particular, Nashville Cowboy, actually asked us to bring Sadie inside so the staff could say hi to her. Obviously I didn’t mind the chance to do some cowboy boot shopping, and was glad the staff kept Sadie entertained while I shopped. That’s where we took the cowgirl Sadie photo at the top of this post.
We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, where they had an outdoor patio that welcomed dogs. Thankfully the patio also featured umbrellas, because it started raining again during dinner.
The next day we made a quick visit to Fort Negley park. It’s a nice place to walk your dog around the remains of an historic fort, though there isn’t much to see there. But this park sits against the back of the Adventure Science Center, so it’s a good place to hang out with your four legged kids while your two legged kids check out the science museum.
We ended our time in Nashville at Belle Meade Plantation. For $10 you and your dogs can walk around the grounds of the estate and visit the out buildings. We saw horses, barns, stables, horse drawn carriages, a smokehouse, a dairy, slave quarters, Civil War bullet holes, a log cabin, and more. Sadie even souvenir shopped with me in the gift shop! There is also a small dog-friendly winery on the grounds, where the wine tasting is included in the admission price.
Nashville has quite a few other dog-friendly activities we just didn’t get the chance to try. The Nashville Ghost Tour, for example, is dog friendly. And Bicentennial Mall State Park, with its water spouts you can run through and it’s view of the State Capitol, would also be a great place to spend some time with your dog. I guess Sadie and I will just have to go back to Nashville some day to see the sights we missed and revisit some of our favorite dog-friendly places!
