I went to Nashville on business to give a presentation at a giant business conference and ended up spending most of my time wandering around the city. While New Orleans has an old world charm replete with falling down mansions that you want to live in, Nashville is a city of tourists who leave all inhibitions behind and drink until they are falling down drunk.

Nashville is also the world’s - that’s right the whole wide world - favorite bridal party location. Female wedding parties were everywhere - often hanging out of busses singing and screaming as they coerced their way through the city. Another phenomenon was the mobil bars where visitors sat and viewed the city waiting for their refills. The city had an untamed and a bit forced wildness in late August as resellers grabbed the last bit of summer. Miraculously it was not hot.

My drinking consists of two and then I must stop or I become like its visitors who go on to drink more than I thought the human body could consume. The music - great in the dive bars and everywhere else - somehow makes up for it. The convention was at the big, sterile Music City Convention Center that was near everything. My GPS refused to function and took me on long, meandering walks to get to my hotel which is listed as in the city but was between the railroad tracks and a neighborhood you do not want to walk around in at night. And this from a New Yorker.

My tourist stop was at the Country Music Hall of Fame, a sprawling couple of floors that took us from its origins in minstrel shows from the early part of the 20th Century - yes you read that right - to the glitzy, soppy mess that it is today. And the truth is I love it. Spent much of my daughter’s childhood listening to tales of suicidal love, loss, men romancing women who were aloof but a bit predictable, driving in trucks. One of my favorites was Taylor Swift - I hear you groaning - who and her diatribes about men who burned her or she burned in turnl

About those dive bars - my favorite was one of the grittiest - The Tin Roof which has a downtown and a second location in a more residential section of the city. Stuffed potatoes skins exploded with cheese, bacon, just about every artery hardening food you could imagine. Of course, nachos were on the menu, as well as every sports bar imagined creation you could think of.

Would I recommend it? Worth a visit solely because of the music but if I had to compare it to something - scenes from The Capitol City in the Hunger Games comes to mind.