Day 4: The Parthenon

Our final stop in Nashville was the Parthenon, which is both an historic building and an art museum. The Parthenon had been on our list for some time and we finally made it. I'd been there once before on a Father's Day trip with my Dad, but it was closed the day we went, so we'd only toured the outside. This was our first time going inside.

It's a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. It was originally built in 1897 (along with a host of other buildings) for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Nashville was known as the "Athens of the South," which is why they copied the real Athens' most famous structure. Madison remembered reading that it was used in filming Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

Like most structures built for grand expos, the buildings (including the Parthenon) were only meant to be temporary. So everything else was torn down, except for one other building, which was moved to nearby Franklin. After a few decades, though the Parthenon was looking rather shabby. By 1925, it was in such bad shape that the city either had to tear it down or restore it to a permanent structure. Luckily, they decided to restore it.

I really wanted to learn more about the building and was not disappointed. Despite the giant doors on the main level (which were open, but covered with glass), you enter through a tiny set of doors into the basement level. The front halls tell the history of the building with a fantastic collection of photos of the Expo. In addition to the Parthenon, the other major attraction was a giant see-saw. There weren't too many photos of it, but there were plenty of photos taken from it, which provided an excellent aerial view of the expo grounds.

The back part of the basement is a small art museum. The collection of paintings were anonymously donated to the city by James M. Cowan on the condition that they not reveal his identity until after he had died.

Upstairs you enter the replica itself, which is divided into two rooms. The smaller room contains pieces of marble statues and the enormous bronze (and glass-covered) doors that look out onto Centennial Park.

The larger room, however, contains the main attraction: a giant, 42-foot high statue of Athena surrounded by columns. This reproduction (again) wasn't added until 1990, and is the "largest indoor sculpture in the western world." She is fully painted and her clothing and more are covered in gold leaf. It's quite a sight to behold and was the perfect ending to our trip to Nashville.