Saturday, February 12, 2011

Centennial Park and Natchez Trace, more Nashville site-seeing

(part of our November trip to Nashville, Tennessee)

Wanting to walk a bit after a nice meal we ended up at Centennial Park, naturally I was quite surprised to see this… The Parthenon! Or rather a full scale replica. Here’s a little more info from the website: “Originally built for Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition, this replica of the original Parthenon in Athens serves as a monument to what is considered the pinnacle of classical architecture. The plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles found in the Naos are direct casts of the original sculptures which adorned the pediments of the Athenian Parthenon, dating back to 438 B.C.” According to the same website Centennial Park is “Nashville’s premier park”…there were many couples and families out enjoying the evening, walking around Lake Watauga. This area was called the “Sunken Gardens” … perhaps it’s a seasonal thing? I really like this “bench”, my husband is attempting to demonstrate its comfort. He looks comfortable right? While in Nashville we also traveled a few miles on the Natchez Trace…a 444-mile parkway through “scenery and 10,000 years of North American history. Used by American Indians, "Kaintucks", settlers, and future presidents, the Old Trace played an important role in American history.” The most remarkable feature for me was there was not a billboard or advertising sign anywhere! Even the official signs assisting you with travel were rare and understated. I felt like we were on a movie set of what a highway could look like.

We stopped at a park along the way and took a short trail to a look-out area. It was beautiful and a little spooky at the same time. If that makes any sense. We saw some incredible lichen along the walk (please correct me if that is not what these are) The view when we got to the top...

5 comments:

  1. That Parthenon replica looks more original than the original: I remember from my art history classes that the friezes were originally polychromed, so it's nice to see what that might have looked like.

    That cast bench is cool!

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  2. In a previous life, I took a trip to Nasville for an incredibly boring convention. I ended up playing hooky one day and took the city bus to see what I could see, including the Parthenon.

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  3. I think that bench inspires excellent posture. Thank goodness for civic expositions that spawned these classical recreations, like San Fran's Palace of Fine Arts from 1917. I suppose they cast the marbles from the British Museum's controversial Elgin Marbles. Was the gigantic statue of Athena inside this recreation?

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  4. MulchMaid, glad you like the bench...if I had a bus stop in front of my house (I always feel sorry for those people) I would want that bench there!

    Les, yay for you! (playing hooky)...adults need to do that more often.

    Denise, glad you mentioned the SF Palace of Fine Arts...my mom and I were in SF in 1996 and just happened to find that, we didn't know what it was at the time but loved discovering it. Don't know about Athena, it was closed for a private function. Which is why there are no straight on shots...they had a big ugly tent out front.

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  5. The first photo of the tree shows bracket fungus. The second close up shows lichens.

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