Music City

Last weekend, Ben and I went to Nashville to celebrate our anniversary. It was the first time either of us had been in Music City, and it was Ben's first time on a plane.

It was a really great trip, to say the least. We stayed in a cute Airbnb near Vanderbilt's campus. Our first night was simple — we got situated, got a coffee at the coffee shop across the street then walked a few blocks down the road to Centennial Park. On the way, we stumbled upon a flower shop named Emma's — it was closed, but didn't stop us from taking photos. This park, right across the street from one of Vanderbilt's entrances, was absolutely massive and home to Nashville's Parthenon replica. In the excitement, we forgot to take photos, but it was grand.

After exploring the area, we walked back to our Airbnb, taking the long way by wandering through Vanderbilt's campus and stopping in a consignment store. Later, we got pizza and went to a venue/bar for a few beers where we plotted out the main event: Saturday.

We really put our feet to use Saturday. We had a long list of places we wanted to try to hit, and almost all were an Uber or Lyft ride away from where we were staying. But we found a good-looking and apparently popular place for brunch, Fido. It was about a 20-minute walk, so we went for it. Once we ate and explored that part of Nashville, we realized it was only a 25-minute walk to another place we wanted to go. Next thing you know, we've hit almost all of the places on our to-do list and only taken a single Lyft.

We crammed in as much as possible. We found different famous murals, tried restaurants and shops that others recommended, went to the Frist Art Museum, scoped out the Hatch Show Print shop and hit a popular bar on Broadway: Paradise Park Trailer Resort.

Later that night, to actually celebrate our anniversary, we went out for a nice candlelit dinner at Pinewood Social, followed by a round of bowling at the in-restaurant lanes.

We were limited Sunday — both by the presence of our bags and the absence of time — but we once again returned to the little coffee shop near our Airbnb before making the trek to a popular Nashville spot (The Wild Cow) that carries specifically Southern-style vegan food.

We could have benefitted from having an extra day or two in Nashville, but we really made the most of the time we had -- and Music City certainly left its mark on me.