Showing posts with label Paducah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paducah. Show all posts

Friday, 8 May 2015

Paducah 2015 - Chicago

Chicago, a wonderful town or rather city, we stayed at the Acme hotel on East Ohio Street, it was casual and 'cool!




Two blocks and we were on Michigan Avenue and the Magnificent Mile for real high end shopping, we spent our first late afternoon and evening wandering this area before heading for supper at the Pizzeria Uno, said to be the home of the first deep dish pizza, the base was very thin and wafer crisp like pastry with a filling of around 1.5 inches deep.  It was delicious and we should have taken heed from our waiter, who subtly advised us that an individual 'pie' would be sufficient for each of us, we order 3 small pizzas....



Of course we ordered far too much and had nearly a full pizza to take back to our room luckily we had our own little kitchen area and waiter too....


along with our own 24hr illuminated bathroom....hot lips pink....


The next morning we took a 'hop on hop off' tour bus ride around the city, it's a beautiful city, wondrous buildings with many friezes and cornice work, I took lots of photos here are just a few....

Our hotel was right across the street from this Bloomingdales Home Dec Store, it was a beautiful building with lots of decorative stone work.



This sky scraper had it's own 'Skydeck' where you could walk out onto a glass deck high above the city,we declined but didn't have time anyway.





I was standing up taking photos of the view on the top deck of the bus when our tour guide said 'Mam, I advise you to stay seated'!
When the bus drove under one of these bridges with around 10 inches to spare above our heads I never stood up again and have had strange thoughts about being garotted ever since, scary stuff..




It was extremely cold and windy up on the top of the double decker bus!

Ellen resting on the stairs of the Apple store on Michigan Avenue, it was a very swish shop....
In the afternoon we visited the 'Bean' and The Art Institute of Chicago .....







The Bean has an amazing mirrored surface in the shape of a coffee bean, these images have not been photo shopped and are just as they come from the camera, we couldn't count the number of reflections, it's incredible!




In the evening we ate at 'Eaterly', it was an interesting place, a food hall really selling everything you could imagine but also serving food,




And then it was time to leave and head of home to Scotland, can't wait until next time!

Thursday, 7 May 2015

Paducah 2015 - Nashville

Ellen safely drove us back to Nashville, State Capitol of Tennessee where we found our hotel on Music Row, right around the corner from Sony Recording Studios where Taylor Swift does business....


Apparently Taylor Swift has a condo in that green glass building
On our first morning we awoke to a Marathon with 30,000 entrants running past our hotel door, all roads were closed to traffic.

We took a walk down to Broadway it was heaving, we found somewhere to eat then browsed the shops, no quilts here just lots of cheap (read expensive) souvenir shops, we giggled as we tried on cowboy boots ,' buy one pair get two pairs free' but resisted temptation.




We also resisted a sugar overload, I've never seen so much sugar!


But I did buy a new pair of shades, check me out!  And yes my own prescription sunglasses were in my own car in the airport car park at Glasgow when I got back, right on the passenger seat where I had left them....

Ellen drove us to Franklin where we were lucky to find an 'arts and crafts festival' to entertain us....





These modern 'Brown Houses' caught Linzi's attention..




Back in Nashville Ellen entertained herself with a book and a very large jug of cocktails while Linzi and I went off on a jolly......


A Paducah Dogwood /Tennessee State Flower on the left and a Celtic Triskele on the right.



We visited a very interesting guitar shop, Gruhn's Vintage Guitars where I was told to use two hands if I wanted to handle any instruments, I'm a very touchy feely person, need pockets to help keep my hand to myself.


To be fair some of those banjos and guitars had very hefty price tags, I saw one for $6000....

The famous 'batman building' synonymous of the Nashville skyline
We all thought that the Elvis lookalike receptionist at our hotel must shop here
On our last day in Nashville we took a 'hop on, hop off' bus trip, should have taken it on day one but the roads were closed, we got our bearings and had a very interesting tour guide.

Lovely view of The Parthenon and the Capitol State Building with the flag, well it would be if it wasn't surrounded by hotels...


The Parthenon...

A Star of the future singing on a street corner
Early evening cocktails, 'Cheers'!
The next day I think Ellen breathed a huge sigh of relief when she drove us back to Nashville airport and returned the rental car, We were now heading to Chicago but not before I managed a backward roll on the escalator, left me bruised and sore for a few days