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Tennessee's Music City plays a lyrical song luring all ages to stay awhile, play, eat, and relax among Southern comforts.

Sing yourself and your family to a Country Western vacation in summer, fall or any time of year. In mild-mannered Nashville, there are many wonderful hotels offering special rates to families and why not? In addition to the celebrated show hall, The Grand Ole Opry, there’s something for everyone, at any age, to see and do in this fun city.

Nashville's musical roots are varied and each of the city's famed "sounds" is celebrated at its own festival, a great time to bring the kids. The Tin Pan South Festival is named for New York's Tin Pan Alley and celebrates songwriters; the CMA Music Festival (formerly Fan Fair) plays a little bit of everything and attracts more than 100,000 music fans from around the world. Riverfront Park has its own stages and hosts a three-day outdoors festival that also features many genres. Come early September, the Music City Jazz & Heritage Festival presents local and national jazz and blues bands to mark summer's end.

Can't Stop the Music

On a recent weekend visit, we asked our hotel when The Grand Ole Opry had performances and who could arrange tickets. Indeed, they checked our dates and the Box Office put tickets aside for us, to be picked up the night of the show.

The Grand Old Opry House is in Music City, about nine miles outside of Nashville city center and adjacent to a Disney-like marvel covering nine landscaped acres, the Gaylord-Opryland Resort and Convention Center. It’s a family must-see. At one level of the hotel, the dancing waters fountain had some 2- and 3-year-olds mesmerized; the older kids were boating on a canal cutting through the resort’s rain-forest, while some teen-agers were trying out the guitars and cowboy hats in one of the many shops, or stopping to sample the Cajun cooking at one of the restaurants.

Another family stop adjacent to the resort is the Opry Mills (615/514 1000), nearly 200 discount stores featuring everything from a rock climbing wall to haute couture to Nike in between.

Another tourist stop in Nashville itself is the famous Parthenon, up on a hill, a replica of the Athens original, albeit in living color (pictured at right, photo by Gary Layda). Surprisingly, it houses an art museum.

Taking second place to music is eating! The Nashville restaurants are great. One of our favorites was The Merchants, on downtown Broadway, lovely food and atmosphere but, while not too pricey, was not a McDonalds price menu.

After dinner, directly across the street, one saloon after another had the doors open with Country/Western music blaring into the street. We chose the famous Tootsies where a quartet was rocking on a little stage in the bar, jam packed with patrons from 8 to 80, drinking beer and stomping to the music. No cover charge here. Just the price of a beer, while you swing to the songs of Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn.

The Adventure Science Museum, the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere, Art Quest at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and the Valley Fair Amusement Park are just a few places with family friendly activities

The Grand Old Opry itself, the main raison d’etre for the visit, lived up to expectations. In the 4,300-seat auditorium (pictured at left, photo by Randy Piland), a mainly family audience enthusiastically applauded the guitar-twanging, Country/Western performers in the hallowed halls where all the music began. Tickets run from around $20 to $50, and can be ordered online or by phone at (615/871 OPRY or 800/SEE OPRY). There’s a parking lot adjacent and a Dave & Buster’s restaurant opposite for a quick bite before the show.