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Berlin has long had a reputation as one of the world’s best cities for nightlife. If anything, the scene gets better with every passing year. Whether you prefer a relaxed evening at a high-end dimly-lit cocktail bar; a craft beer in a club that includes a top-notch grungy backyard hangout; live music, a dance floor, and shots shots shots; or the ever-so-Berlin combination of a trippy art installation, beer garden, and dance club, the city serves up the good times.

This sprawl of green—132 acres’ worth—is an oasis for urbanites. The park’s centerpiece, the Nashville Parthenon, is a full-scale replica of the Grecian structure and a physical testimony to Nashville’s “Athens of the South” nickname. The park’s bandshell hosts Shakespeare in the Park and occasionally serves as the site of the popular Movies in the Park, but because this is Nashville, a free live music series called Musicians Corner dominates the summer programming. On Saturday afternoons from May through September, music lovers, families, and pets gather to enjoy an impressive lineup of musicians, as well as local food trucks and a beer garden. Recent performers have included Preservation Hall Jazz Band and local favorites Rayland Baxter, Cale Tyson, and Langhorne Slim.

The Spirit of Istanbul

For locals in Miami, start the day by visiting a local market where you can shop for artisan breads, fresh produce and cultural gems. Shopping in Miami is always a special experience, but locals tend to choose smaller boutiques. For those who need a lot of things, there’s also a huge outlet mall north of the city which is a day-long activity. A lot of the shopping venues in Miami are filled with restaurants, bars and entertainment, offering something for the entire family and fashionista.

Fine dining at the very highest level is somewhat thin on the ground in Da Nang and Hoi An. Nevertheless, there are stirrings at the top end of the market, with Pierre Gagnaire the biggest name to stamp his presence on the central coast dining scene. Other chefs are also doing a fine job in everything from fusion cuisine to exemplary hotel venues.

Whether you’re searching for a spot to sip a craft beer while watching the Northern Lights or a popular bar that serves up au courant cocktails and electronic music, Iceland has you covered. Reykjavík is, easily, Iceland’s most popular city for those who like to pair drinking and dancing, but it also offers plenty of places to perch if you’re more in the mood for conversation with locals over a nightcap. One of the city’s coolest trends: many of the coffee shops turn into buzzing dance parties during the evening hours. Of course, many of Iceland’s most-celebrated restaurants also go to town when it comes to cocktails. Worry not, you’ll never go thirsty.

Each Tuesday around 7:30pm, locals from in around central Mérida descend on the square in Parque Santiago to dance “danzon” under the stars at the weekly event called “Remembranzas Musicales”. A form of dance and music, “danzón” was introduced from Cuba to México in the early Twentieth Century. Cuban inspired rhythms from the 1930’s and 40’s are just what is takes to get this crowd moving. Each week, elegant ladies and immaculately dressed men kick up their heels to live music provided by the City Band. The average age of the dancers is north of 50, but they know their moves and it always draws a festive crowd. Everybody is welcome to join in, even if you are not the worlds best dancer. If not, you can take a seat on the sidelines and simply enjoy the festivities. Also, with a night market of restaurants adjacent to the plaza and tables spilling out under the night sky, its a great spot to enjoy the show while sampling local dishes like panuchos, salbutes, tamales and sopa de lima. Parque Santiago is in Mérida Centro, four blocks from Méridas main plaza. It is located in 59 street between 70 and 72. The neighborhood of Santiago, in which the park is located is a colorful colonial era neighborhood full of life. With all the music, food and color, it is also one of the best neighborhoods to stay in. Great vacation rentals ideas with pools and other great amenites are yours by the night, week or month at http://www.remixto.com/. (Images courtesy of Mérida.gob.mx)

Third Man Records, the Nashville outpost of musician Jack White’s record label and store, is hard to define. It’s both a retail outlet for vinyl and offices for his label, sure, but it also includes a “novelty lounge” with coin-operated video jukeboxes and whimsical contraptions. What draws the crowds, though, is Third Man’s music venue (decked out with curved blue walls adorned with taxidermy), which regularly holds live performances, shows movies, and hosts record-release events. Visitors also can step into the tiny Record Booth, a refurbished 1947 Voice-o-Graph machine, to record up to two minutes of audio that they can take home on a 6-inch phonograph disc.

O’Donoghue’s Bar, which dates back to the eighteenth century, is arguably the most famous pub in Dublin for traditional Irish music. The bar is lively, rammed with a mainly—but by no means exclusively—local crowd, and has a great, welcoming atmosphere. There is a huge beer garden, and on busy nights there will be someone serving the tables outside. The main draw, of course, is the live traditional music, which kicks off mid-evening seven days a week. Unlike many other venues that boast live trad and there is no sense that the music at O’Donoghue’s is a performance put on for the tourists. In fact it’s quite the opposite: you get the feeling the musicians are playing solely for themselves, and don’t care whether you listen or not. Which is lucky, really—the night we were there the bar was so crowded, and the conversation so raucous, that you had to get really close to hear the music. If you’re a fan of, or curious about, traditional Irish music, O’Donoghue’s is definitely a place to check out. And make sure to keep your eyes open as well as your ears: such local musical luminaries as the Dubliners and Christy Moore have been known to swing by in the past!

The exterior of this Midtown lodging won’t win any design awards—the building previously housed an insurance company—but that’s what makes the art-filled, wood-accented lobby such a pleasant surprise upon arrival. With its plush leather sofas and moody interiors, the Hutton exudes down-home charm with a modern touch: A friendly sit-down check-in coupled with swift service at the lobby’s WestEnd Kitchen & Bar make the hotel a favorite of touring musicians and visiting celebrities. Oversize guest rooms (some of Nashville’s largest) feature soft blue and gray tones, fabric-covered walls, and vibrant artwork. At the 5,000-square-foot on-site music venue Analog, you can sip creative cocktails while listening to some of the city’s top performers, but if you’d like to see the view from the other side of the microphone, the hotel’s Writers Studios is stocked with state-of-the-art equipment for laying down your own tracks.

Nashville may be known as Music City, but its reputation for inventive cuisine is catching up at a galloping pace that a rockabilly drummer would recognize. Southern staples like biscuits, fried chicken, and macaroni and cheese have been revisited by Nashville’s chefs and transformed into something divine.

You wouldn’t expect a tiny country like Belgium to have thousands of festivals, every single year. But Belgian’s love an excuse to party and whether that excuse is food, drink, history, nature, music, or the downright quirky, there is a festival here for everyone.

Where to eat the best tapas in Madrid, Sevilla, Barcelona, and San Sebastián—plus how to order them like the locals do.

You can listen to reggae everywhere in Jamaica, from dancing barefoot in the sand in Negril while a live band plays, to impromptu jams throughout the island. Real reggae aficionados should plan their trip around Sumfest, Jamaica Jazz, Rebel Salute, or Bob Marley Birthday Bash—just a few of Jamaica’s best music festivals.

When owner Dave Neupert discovered the history of the Gold-Diggers Entertainment building in East Hollywood, he knew he had to turn it into a music-themed bar and boutique hotel. Originally built as an “inn above a tavern” in 1924, directly on Santa Monica Boulevard back when it was the famous Route 66, the building later became a dive bar with a rehearsal studio in the back that welcomed punk bands and was even used as a sound stage for Ed Wood. Now, the sleek Gold-Diggers bar includes dark-wood chevron paneling, textured wall coverings, a gold-velvet stage curtain, and Art Deco pendant lighting. Justin Gage of Aquarium Drunkard oversees the music and has welcomed such musicians as Iceage, Mary Lattimore, Julianna Barwick, and Luna to perform. There’s also an on-site recording studio, featuring nine professionally designed and acoustically engineered writing, tracking, and mixing studios managed by industry veteran Simon Horrocks and Grammy-award-winning engineer Eric Gorman.