Nashville

Built in 1892 as a tabernacle for revival meetings, so the seats are still wooden church pews. From 1943 to 1974 it housed the Grand Ole Opry radio show, and by day tours lead you up onto the stage.

The radio show that began in 1925 still broadcasts live every week from here. A circle of wood cut from the Ryman's boards is set into the stage, and singers stand on it. It lies about 20 minutes east of downtown, beside a shopping mall.

Its windows run like piano keys and its spire echoes an old radio mast. Inside are artefacts such as Elvis Presley's gold-trimmed Cadillac, and the inductees' bronze plaques ring the rotunda.

Within a few blocks of the river the bars known as honky-tonks stand wall to wall, with bands on every stage by day and through the night. Entry is free, but the band passes a tip jar, and a request goes in with a bill.

A full-scale copy of the Athens temple, first raised for the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition and later rebuilt in concrete. Inside stands a gilded Athena nearly 13m tall, finished in 1990, and the city art museum fills the lower floor.

The plantation home of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president, who lies with his wife Rachel in a garden tomb. Exhibits and cabins also tell the lives of the 150 or so people enslaved here. It is roughly 20 minutes' drive east of downtown.

Elvis Presley recorded hundreds of songs in this studio, and the Nashville Sound of the 1950s and 1960s took shape here. It cannot be visited on your own; tickets are sold at the Country Music Hall of Fame, and a bus leaves from there.

In a small cafe in a suburban strip mall, songwriters sit in a circle and take turns playing songs they wrote. Seats are very few, tickets go the moment they are released online, and talking during a set earns a shush.

At this distillery in the village of Lynchburg, 90 minutes' drive south-east, tours show spirit trickling slowly through sugar maple charcoal. The county long barred alcohol sales, but tastings and sales now happen inside the distillery.

A Greek temple-style building on a hilltop, completed in 1859. Its architect, William Strickland, died before it was finished and is entombed in its walls, and the tomb of James K. Polk, the 11th president, and his wife stands on the grounds.

Opened in 2013 a block off Lower Broadway, it gathers the black stage clothes, guitars and handwritten lyrics of Johnny Cash. Listening posts let you pick recordings from each era on headphones. The galleries are small; allow about an hour.

A 19th-century plantation famed for its thoroughbred bloodlines, its white-columned Greek Revival mansion still standing. Guided tours also tell the stories of the enslaved people who worked here. A tasting at the on-site winery follows the tour.

A 1934 Art Deco main post office turned gallery. With no permanent collection, shows rotate every few months. Some come just for the aluminium doors and marble lobby, an easy walk from downtown next to Union Station.

A 1930s mansion built on a coffee fortune, with its grounds now a botanical garden and art museum. Spring tulips run to the hundreds of thousands; a woodland trail holds modern sculpture. At year's end the gardens are lit every evening.

Opened in 2021 at the foot of Broadway, it traces how Black music, from spirituals and blues to jazz, gospel and hip-hop, shaped all American music. A wristband issued at entry saves the songs you like so you can replay them at home.