纳什维尔[美国田纳西州首府]

A view from the balcony at the new Grand Ole Opry

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.

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.