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| A view from the balcony at the new Grand Ole Opry |
Admit it - as LA is to long-haired rockers and Chicago is to steamy blues1 - when you think Nashville, you've got country music on your mind. And why not? As the self-proclaimed 'Country Music Capital of the World,' Nashville revels2 in its down-home glamour3. Banners and billboards4 announce new recording5 stars and releases like accolades6 （称赞；盛赞）in a high school yearbook, and streets bear the names of country legends like Roy Acuff and Chet Atkins. Music City (as Nashville's promoters like to call it) has even caught the attention of non-country singers - from Joan Baez to Jello7 Biafra - though their reviews have not always been favorable. Still, for a city that's staked（本意为把…押下打赌，拿...冒险） it's reputation on its trademark8 sound, there's no doubt about it - Nashville's tune9 is catchy10.
Straddling the Cumberland River in northern central Tennessee, Nashville lies midway between the Great Lakes and the Gulf11 of Mexico. From the state capitol - the city's highest point - a busy, compact downtown of narrow one-way streets and high-rise office buildings slopes eastward12 to Broadway, Nashville's central artery13. Southeast of the capitol along 2nd Ave and Broadway, the renovation14 of historic commercial buildings has carved a downtown tourist destination called 'the District.' Music Row, the other main commercial district, is less than a mile southwest of downtown.
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| Record shop named after the famous country singer |
In the rest of sprawling15 Nashville, it's hard to pinpoint（准确地确定）what constitutes a neighborhood, but a few are easily discernible（可识别的）. Elliston Place is a compact stretch of bohemian alternative culture about a mile west of downtown and north of West End Ave. South of this is the Vanderbilt University campus. East of Elliston Place and abutting16（邻接；毗连） the university, Centennial Park is the site of the mock（仿制品）Parthenon leftover17 from the Centennial Exposition of 1897. This whole area is known as West End, and it centers on a cluster of restaurants along Broadway and West End Ave on either side of the university; you might also hear it referred to as 'Around Vanderbilt.'
Many tourists never set foot in downtown Nashville, confining their visit to the massive Opryland complex a few miles northeast of town. Here, the prefabricated（预先制造；预先构思） Music Valley boasts budget motels, franchise18 restaurants and outlet19 stores.
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