Dollywood & Nashville

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Ah, Dollywood. Many mocked our decision to visit Dolly Parton’s theme park, but I think they're missing out – it’s great! In between visiting the Dolly Parton museum and seeing her many and varied stage outfits, tour bus, etc, watching the delightfully cheesy musical she wrote about life in the Smoky Mountains (complete with flying Native Americans, I kid you not), eating corn dogs and curly fries, watching bluegrass bands and line dancers, you can also visit the Dollywood local craft shops where blacksmiths, carpenters and folks practising the age old art of souvenir selling are ready to provide you with a full sized horse drawn wagon or a Dolly Parton fridge magnet. Souvenir-selling aside, the craft preservation area did seem like a pretty genuine set up and even in the tackiest parts of the park it was clear Ms Parton was in no way taking herself seriously. Regan and I agreed t’was a day well spent.

After Dollywood we motored on towards Nashville, home of country music. Again, there’s much to criticise about Nashville – it’s touristy, a bit tacky and the “country” music you hear in the bars is the specially selected “tourists will recognise this” variety. But again, I think it has its charm. Maybe charm is the wrong word, but there aren’t many places where you can spend a day posing with the car from Dukes of Hazzard, wandering round the Willie Nelson museum, learning the real differences between country, blues, bluegrass, rockabilly and folk music before heading to a concert at which Steve Martin is a guest performer on the banjo and then ending up dancing in a seedy bar to Jailhouse Rock. It even has friendly locals who'll give you a ride through the McDonalds drive-thru at 3am when the bemused cashier says she can't sell you a hamburger unless you're in a car. Loved it.