Ancient Greece lives on in Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville isn't all country music, southern food and whisky. It's also ancient Greece.

The Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee.

This full-scale replica of the Greek Parthenon stands in a beautiful Nashville park.

Visitors are as likely to check out the museum inside as they are to walk or bicycle along the nearby paths. A handful of runners use the covered portico as the gorgeous and unlikely setting for their daily workouts. On this day, one young man stood on the steps of the Parthenon, hoisted a guitar above his head and posed for what would undoubtedly become his awesome debut album cover.

The story of this out-of-place monument begins with the 1897 Centennial Exposition. For that event, the fairgrounds were littered with such monuments to help establish the worldy atmosphere. The monuments, including the Parthenon, a pyramid and others, were made of cheap, temporary materials and destined for removal at the fair's end.

During the course of the fair, however, the people of Tennessee grew attached to the full-scale Parthenon building, so it was re-built from permanent materials to remain standing forever in Nashville.

Outside, the building looks the part. Only up close could we find a few spots that revealed the plaster or cement of modern construction versus the ancient stone that one would surely find in Greece.

Inside, a cramped museum gallery betrays the authenticity, but it does help convey the history of the building and the fair, as outlined above.

Literally the biggest surprise awaits in one of two suddenly and shockingly spacious exhibit rooms.

Athena looms large inside the Parthenon.

This six-story-tall statue of the Greek goddess Athena is as impressive for its size as it is for its color and detail.

The figures and markings depicted in Athena's crown, on her shield and sandals, and below her on the statue's base, all tell their own ancient stories.

The size, though: the winged god standing in the palm of Athena's hand is a life-sized, six-feet tall in his own right.

Fist bump.

Surrounded by spectacle and the combined histories of Tennessee and ancient Greece, we wrapped up our Parthenon tour by posing for the silly photo above and exited through the park, back to our car. Next stop: Belle Meade Plantation.

Josh Turner headlines the Grand Ole Opry

Tucked in between Nashville's biggest indoor shopping mall, and the oasis that is the Opryland Hotel, we made our way to the Grand Ole Opry, or "the show that made country music famous."

Obligatory photo op outside the Grand Ole Opry.

The Grand Ole Opry features a long list of performers at every show, and each act gets to play a couple of songs. It's a fun format and the variety is impressive: we heard everything from today's hit country by Josh Turner and the deep bass of an up-and-coming performer who accompanied country legend Billy Ray Cyrus, to old-time yodeling and acapella in harmony by the impressive Gatlin Boys.

Billy Ray Cyrus accompanies an up-and-coming star.

The show is steeped in history. The round section of off-colored wood at center stage comes from the stage in the Grand Ole Opry's original theater. When a performer stands there, she feels the combined history of all the acts that have preceeded her.

We're not sure what Uncle Sy from Duck Dynasty feels when he stands there, but he indeed made a few cameo appearances during our Opry show.

Can't visit the south without running into someone from Duck Dynasty.

The Grand Ole Opry is simultaneously broadcast online and locally over the AM airwaves. From behind his on-stage podium, a buttoned-up announcer reads modern-day companies' old-fashioned-sounding ads to the audience and the listeners at home.

There's some modern history here, too. A recent flood in Nashville closed the doors of the Grand Ole Opry for the first time, and the show was forced to relocate for a time while the damage was repaired.

That same flood inundated the neighboring shopping mall, ultimately wiping out the home of Gibson Guitar, where tourists and shoppers could previously visit to see the iconic instruments manufactured.

There's plenty of live music to be found in downtown Nashville, but none of that can match the ambiance and variety of a show at the Grand Ole Opry.

Southern fried catfish, chicken and shrimp

From Johnson City to Nashville, the closest we'd come to southern homestyle cooking was the baked bean chili dogs and sweet tea at the Bush's Best Baked Beans Visitor's Center in Chestnut Hill.

At the Cock of the Walk Restaurant, hidden around the corner and alongside the highway behind the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, that finally changed.

It's worth the hunt to find this Nashville restaurant.

Cock of the Walk is a huge restaurant with winding, wood-paneled hallways leading to various eating nooks and dining rooms.

The spacious front lobby features walls of photos showing the southern celebrities who have dined there throughout the years. Rows of large, wooden rocking chairs seat guests who are waiting for a table to open up.

Once we were seated, the waitress explained how the family-style dining worked. We ordered the sampler meal so we could try southern-fried catfish, chicken and shrimp. They were each great, and depending on one's tastes, any one of the three might be a favorite.

What'll it be? Fried chicken? Fried shrimp? Fried catfish?

The main course was served with tin cups and small, cast-iron skillets of side dishes. We helped ourselves family-style to unlimited coleslaw, cornbread, hushpuppies, onions and beans.

The staff was friendly. We ate at Cock of the Walk twice, and they kept the food coming and the sweet tea filled both times, and they were also just generally polite and fun to talk to.

Courtesy of Pinterest, a typical meal at Cock of the Walk.

We got the sense that Cock of the Walk was a favorite destination for Nashville locals, and that's a bigger recommendation than anything I could write here.

Want to find one of Tennessee's best, authentic southern dining experiences? Grab a seat in one of the rocking chairs, and order some fried chicken at Nashville's Cock of the Walk.

We walk in and out of Nashville, Tennessee

Downtown Nashville is not for us.

Welcome to Nashville, Tennessee

All I'd heard of Nashville is what you might hear on the national country music stations: it's the heart of country music!

Navigating past the bars and crowds of Nashville

But, what we found in downtown Nashville was more like a giant, suburban house party that spilled out and took over a handful of city blocks.

Countless bachelorette parties were parading through the streets like drunken ducks in a row. Some pedaled open-air bars through the streets, others cheered from inside party buses, and others navigated through the crowded streets to hop from bar to bar the old-fashioned way.

Typical day in Nashville with Hot Wing Festival cameo

As you might expect, every bar along this cliched, pop-country version of Times Square offered a live musical act. From the street, all of this Music City noise blended together to create a cacophony of cymbals, guitar chords and people shouting over each other to be heard.

This was Tennessee as we'd never seen it before, and all the crowds, the noise, the drinking - it didn't appeal to us.

We ducked into a two-level souvenir shop, and I waited in line at a crowded coffee shop, but it wasn't long after we arrived in downtown Nashville that we walked ourselves back to our parking garage and got out of there.

Joe's Crab Shack in Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville still had a few great surprises in store for us, including the Grand Ole Opry and our first homecooking-style southern meal, but those surprises wouldn't be found in this crowded downtown area.

The Tennessee Titans play just over the river from downtown Nashville

Later the next day, we popped in a second time, wandered around and checked out the bridge that led to the Tennessee Titans football stadium, but on the list of places we visited in Tennessee, downtown Nashville is at the bottom - and that part of the list is soaked in the tequila spilled from some bachelorette party's last round of shots.

Experiencing five decades of Johnny Cash

Our journey took us next to Nashville, Tennessee, and our very first stop was the Johnny Cash Museum.

Actually, the absurdly expensive nearby parking lot was our first stop, and that offered our first true taste of downtown Nashville. More interesting than the jacked up parking rates, we also saw the first of many drunken bachelorette parties. This one was climbing onto the stools of a mobile bar that they could power through the city by pedaling as they partied.

We later found it's better to hunt for an actual garage, since they can afford to offer a more reasonable rate thanks to the larger number of customers they can accommodate.

"Hello. I'm [the] Johnny Cash [Museum]."

As a fan of Johnny Cash, the museum was an experience I'd been anticipating. My wife isn't that much of a fan, and this contrast eventually helped shape my overall impression of the museum.

We picked up our tickets at a line between a cafe and the gift shop. Guests were shown into the museum in intervals to keep the small exhibit rooms from getting too crowded. While we waited, we looked around to see Johnny Cash pictured on all kinds of souvenirs and listened to some of his lesser-known songs over the speakers in the room.

This combination of listening and looking turned out to be an accurate prelude for what was to come.

Five decades of Johnny Cash.

Inside, the main hall featured exhibits along one wall, and listening stations along another.

It was crowded, so it took some patience to wait for headphones to become available, but I was able to listen to full Cash songs representing music from the 1960s through 2000s. In the space of that first hour, I enjoyed five decades of Johnny Cash.

The exhibits offered a lot of history, plus some really cool pieces such as a hand-written letter from Johnny Cash to his friend and former Air Force buddy Ted Freeman.

It began, "Friend, you've been cussin me for weeks now, but I've been on the road for weeks and I ain't had time to write.

"I've been to Beaumont, Galveston, San Antonio, Wichita Falls, Amarillo, Lubbock, Abilene and San Angelo, Texas..."

Through the rest of the museum, we found movie screenings; listening stations for artists Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins; audio comparing the quality of Cash tunes produced through the years on records, cassettes, discs and digital devices; and other cool exhibits, including the mixing board used to record Cash's final records.

The mixing board used for Cash's last albums under the American Recordings label.

Overall, there were hours of music to enjoy and lots of interesting things to learn. I mentioned earlier that my wife wasn't a big Johnny Cash fan, and that led to a lot of killing time for her while I listened to another song and tried to take in the whole experience.

Because of all the listening stations, the Johnny Cash Museum is better suited for one person than it is a pair of visitors. Had each audio exhibit offered a couple sets of headphones, it would've been a better overall experience for the two of us together.

As it was, though, I had a great time as a Johnny Cash fan, and would definitely recommend the museum to any fans who will take the time to really enjoy the music, for it's those decades of songs that are the museum's greatest treasure.

Eating in Knoxville, Tennessee

Maybe had we stopped in to visit the residents of Mountain City we could've had some authentic southern food, but through East Tennessee and Knoxville, we hadn't found much other than what Bush's Best Baked Beans was serving up in Chestnut Hill.

What it lacked in southern style homecooking, Knoxville made up for with the variety of restaurants and bars along Gay Street and Market Square.

A crowd gathered for Shakespeare on the Square in Knoxville's Market Square.

While we were in Knoxville, we tried two of the Market Square restaurants.

Soccer Taco was set up like a Mexican sports bar. The food was good, but of course, it was the soccer-themed decor that left the biggest impression.

The televisions on the wall betrayed that soccer theme, however, by showing some collegiate American football during our meal. Between this and the food, Soccer Taco was a fun place to grab a bite, but it couldn't top our earlier experience at Ole's Guacamoles in Johnson City.

Flow serves beer and coffee drinks to to the residents and locals in Knoxville.

Elsewhere in Knoxville, we found the small, trendy Flow Brew Parlor with its coffee, beer and espresso offerings. We enjoyed a Memphis-brewed coffee milk stout by Wiseacre.

Back at Market Square, Not Watson's offered a comfortable experience with big booths, dark lighting and interesting artwork. It also served up an awesome alligator po' boy sandwich.

The food at Not Watson's is served with style, including the alligator po' boy.

Checking out the menu, we learned the story behind the restaurant's peculiar name. Watson's was a renowned department store on Knoxville's Market Square one or two generations ago.

Whenever the restaurant owner's mother wanted to take her family to town, she'd suggest Watson's. They went so often that the kids would always answer the question of, "Where should we go today?" the same way:

"Not Watson's!"

When one of those kids grew up to own this Market Square restaurant, naming it was easy, and Not Watson's stands as a subtle tribute to Mom.

We didn't try this Market Square bar, but we did spot the man pulling a keg through the wall.

Just one block from Market Square, on Gay Street, we tried the Irish pub called Clancy's Tavern and found some good, but pricey versions of pub staples such as fish and chips. What set this place apart was its unique drink offerings, called beer-tails.

The cocktail version of a glass of beer, the bartenders created beer-tails by mixing together two complimentary beers. This sounded to me like it'd be awful, but the one we tried - called Snakebite, it tempered a hard cider with Harp's lager - was delicious.

Our final Knoxville dining experience came on a whim a little further along on Gay Street.

It was early afternooon, and we were headed to a beautiful, historic movie theater now owned by Regal Cinemas when we saw the Parisian-styled French Market Creperie.

The French Market Creperie in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Inside, we ordered a sugary dessert crepe and a savory ham-and-cheese crepe to go along with a couple cappuccinos. For that long moment, my wife and I sat in Knoxville, Tennessee, and reminisced over our honeymoon in Paris, France, just a few years earlier.

Taking a ride on Knoxville's free KAT trolley

We like to see as much of a new city as we can. One way to do that is to climb to the top of something like Knoxville's Sunsphere and take it all in at once. Another way to see Knoxville in a hurry is to hop on the free trolley and take a 15-minute lap around the downtown area.

A park between Gay Street and Market Square.

We spotted a couple waiting at a Gay Street station for one of Knoxville's free KAT (Knoxville Area Transit) trolleys, so we grabbed some shade on the edge of the adjacent park and waited there, too.

A few minutes later, the trolley arrived and we started down Gay Street. Around the first bend, we found ourselves overlooking the Tennessee River on one side, and passing the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame on the other.

The route eventually took us by the entrance of a downtown Hampton Inn & Suites hotel. More than anything, the free ride was perfect for tourists at this hotel who wanted a lift to Gay Street, Market Square or Knoxville's other downtown attractions.

The Rowing Man sculpture in Knoxville, Tennessee. Sculpted in 1988 by David L. Phelps.

A few minutes later, we were the only passengers left on board, and the friendly driver checked in with us and let us know the trolley wouldn't be running much longer.

This worked for us, though, because we soon turned the corner back onto Gay Street, passed the Knoxville Visitor's Center and arrived back at the station where our tour began.