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Couples weekend · Nashville, TN

A Romantic 3-Day Nashville Weekend for Couples

Honky-tonks roaring from noon on one side of town, songwriters playing to a silent room on the other: a Nashville weekend for two needs both.

3-day plan6 stopsCouples weekend
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Photo: Chad Morehead / Unsplash

The shape of the trip

Lower Broadway is the loud one, all live music, no cover and no quiet. The other Nashville is listening rooms, old gardens and meat-and-threes, and this plan leans on it, with exactly enough Broadway to count.

Every evening ends pointed at a stage.

Good to know

Downtown is walkable, but this is a driving city: 12South, Hillsboro Village, East Nashville and Germantown sit ten or fifteen minutes' ride from the centre and from each other. Good to know: April–May and late September–October bring mild patio evenings; in July and August, save museums for the afternoon and shows for after dark.

Day 1

Music history downtown, then the strip

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, NashvilleAnchor

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Learn the story by day, then hear it in the room that made it.

The Country Music Hall of Fame traces the whole arc, from instruments and handwritten lyrics to stage costumes and the rotunda, and holds fans and sceptics alike for two or three hours. A few blocks north, the Ryman Auditorium, built in 1892 as a tabernacle, is the Mother Church of Country Music and ran the Grand Ole Opry for over thirty years. Tours run most days, but the version for two is a ticket to that night's show: original pews, no bad seat.

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on the map

Photo: Lee Luo

Frist Art Museum, NashvilleBackup

Frist Art Museum

If a whole morning of country music is too much, walk a few blocks west on Broadway to the Frist: rotating exhibitions in a restored 1930s Art Deco post office.

The marble, grillwork and enormous doors are half the reason to go, and it's a calm, air-conditioned hour or two.

Frist Art Museum on the map

Photo: Cory Stott

Eat & rest

Give Lower Broadway one hour, then leave. Robert's Western World has a wall of cowboy boots, cheap beer and a house band playing traditional country; Tootsie's Orchid Lounge next door has been the songwriters' bar behind the Ryman since 1960. For a dinner where you can hear each other, head to Germantown, just north of downtown.

How to pace it

The Hall of Fame, the Ryman and Broadway are ten minutes apart on foot. Buy Ryman show tickets as far ahead as you can; good nights sell out. Doing the tour too? Take it first.

Day 2

Gardens, a Parthenon, and a listening room

Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, NashvilleAnchor

Cheekwood Estate & Gardens

The antidote to Broadway: an unhurried couple of hours where the only plan is to wander and sit somewhere with a view down the hill.

A 1930s limestone mansion on a wooded hillside, open to the public since 1960, sits in fifty-odd acres of botanical gardens, with a Japanese garden, a boxwood garden, a woodland sculpture trail and an art museum in the house. Spring tulips and dogwoods and the turning autumn woods are its peaks, but the bones are good in any month.

Cheekwood Estate & Gardens on the map

Photo: John Stevenson

The Parthenon, NashvilleBackup

The Parthenon

A genuinely surreal thing to find in Tennessee: a full-scale replica of the Parthenon, built for the state's 1897 centennial exposition and rebuilt in concrete, with a 42-foot gilded Athena and a small art museum inside. Centennial Park around it is free, with a lake and long lawns, and Hillsboro Village is five minutes' walk for lunch. The park is midway through renovation work that can move paths and parking, so check access first.

The Parthenon on the map

Photo: Szymon Jasina

Eat & rest

Lunch in 12South or Hillsboro Village, walkable strips of independent restaurants, coffee and boutiques ten minutes from Cheekwood. Then songwriters, not bands: at the Bluebird Cafe, a small listening room in a Green Hills strip mall, writers play their own songs in the round and the room stays silent between verses.

How to pace it

Cheekwood is about twenty minutes by car and closes one day a week in some seasons, so check the day. The Bluebird is the most competitive booking in this plan; make it your first.

Day 3

A sunset over the river and a night at the Opry

Grand Ole Opry House, NashvilleAnchor

Grand Ole Opry House

End with the institution: broadcasting live since 1925, the longest-running radio show in America.

A night at the Opry House east of town is less a concert than a live variety show, six or eight acts of legends and newcomers stitched together with on-air announcements and read-out adverts. Charming, unpretentious, and quick enough that nobody gets bored. Some dates are billed as Opry at the Ryman instead, five miles away downtown; the venue is on the ticket, so confirm your stage when you book.

Grand Ole Opry House on the map

Photo: Sam Lauman

Station Inn, NashvilleBackup

Station Inn

If the Opry is sold out or you'd rather stay central, take a seat at the Station Inn: a low stone room in the Gulch that has been the city's bluegrass home since 1974, with a small stage and tickets under twenty dollars. Get there early; seating is at shared tables and the good ones go first.

Station Inn on the map

Photo: Blake Baldassari

Eat & rest

Catch sunset from the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, a 1909 truss bridge now for walkers only, five minutes from Broadway: the skyline on one side, the Cumberland below. Before you fly out, the Loveless Cafe on Highway 100 has served biscuits and country ham since 1951, twenty minutes away.

How to pace it

The Opry House is about twenty minutes by car with no walkable dinner nearby, so eat first. It plays several nights a week, usually early evening, leaving room for a nightcap in town.

Romantic things to do in Nashville, beyond the three days above

The plan above is the spine. Add to it by the kind of evening you want:

  • Jazz in a low room: Rudy's Jazz Room (the Gulch), the city's dedicated jazz club, with dinner service. It takes reservation requests and walk-ins, so it's the easiest good music night to arrange late.
  • Wine and a stage under one roof: City Winery Nashville (SoBro), a working urban winery with a concert room, so you can eat and talk before the music starts.
  • The dinner to book first: Rolf and Daughters (Germantown), a small, dark, pasta-led room in an old factory building. Evenings only.
  • A neighbourhood table rather than a scene: Lockeland Table (East Nashville), a restored corner store turned dining room. Closed Sundays.
  • A cinema instead of a bar: the Belcourt Theatre (Hillsboro Village), in a 1925 building that once hosted the Opry. The cheapest genuinely good date in town.
  • Something other than country: the Schermerhorn Symphony Center (SoBro), home of the Nashville Symphony.
  • A tasting room instead of a honky-tonk: Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery (Marathon Village), tours and tastings in an old factory complex a few minutes from downtown.
  • A day out: Arrington Vineyards, about half an hour south, with picnic tables among the vines and live music on the lawn in season. Tables are first-come; book tastings online.
  • A slow morning: the Nashville Farmers' Market beside Bicentennial Capitol Mall, open daily and a better start than queueing for pancakes.

Rainy day or heat-of-the-afternoon backup (indoors)

Summers bring quick afternoon thunderstorms, and spring and autumn can turn wet.

  • The Hall of Fame, the Frist, a Ryman daytime tour, the Parthenon's interior and the windowless Station Inn all shrug off the weather.

Where to eat and drink

  • Hot chicken is a Nashville institution and hotter than you think: order one heat level below your instinct, and treat "mild" as a real option.
  • The Loveless Cafe draws a wait at weekends; closer in, a downtown meat-and-three does the same job faster. For a last dinner, cross the river to East Nashville’s small, chef-driven rooms.
  • Book first: Bluebird seats release online a set number of days ahead and go in minutes (the release day and time are on bluebirdcafe.com), and good Ryman nights sell out.
  • Settle those two together before anything else, then leave the rest of the weekend loose enough to follow whatever music you stumble into.
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