Boot up at the Country Music Hall of Fame
Rhinestones, tassels, boots so pointy they'll make your toes bleed... what more could you expect from Nashville's monument to the music that made it famous? Well, plenty more, as it turns out. The hall of fame contains some seriously impressive...
Strut your stuff at the Ryman, Nashville
The original home of the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman is a place of pilgrimage for every country music fan. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see a gig there - so we went one better and got up on stage ourselves. The Ryman tour - a good introduction to...
Hazelnut soy latte - with added banjo
At the Authentic Coffee Co it's not just the beans that are the real thing. There's a jam every week (Friday, last I heard) where some of the best bluegrassers in the wider Tennessee area gather. But the most authentic thing here is the folk....
Check out the art at the Biltmore estate
The Biltmore estate is truly one of the most impressive buildings in North Carolina, if not the entire South, and as such it's a must-see. You can't help but be gobsmacked by its ambition, its swagger, and at times gauche mismatching of styles...
Cruise the music scene in Asheville
There's so much good live music in Asheville that the bars can't contain it - I've never been somewhere with such a high quality of street busking (even better than its homophonous sister town, Nashville). Most nights of the week and certainly on...
Chill out in Black Mountain
OK, America has plenty of beautiful little mountain towns. I just happened to catch this one on a quiet, low-season day and I was utterly charmed. The secondhand bookshop was a thing of joy - run by a woman who knew her Dorothy Parker from her...
Learn to contradance in Asheville
Enjoy being flung around by energetic, enthusiastic partners? You don't? I bet you change your mind when you've tried a contradance. This is folk dancing with vim, vigour and a large application of centrifugal force. The weekly dance at Warren...
Bluegrass jam at Jack of the Wood
There's music almost every night of the week at the Jack of the Wood, the atmospheric Celtic pub in the centre of Asheville. And arguably the best of the bunch is the Thursday night jam, when some of Appalachia's best bluegrass musicians take to...
Biltmore Estate, Asheville
A self-guided tour of the Vanderbilt family's 8,000-acre estate
in Asheville, North Carolina, takes you through gardens bursting with roses and azaleas, and past pools filled with koi and pineapple-scented water lilies. The centerpiece is the...
