Today, we went and did something that I have been looking forward to for a while: the Garylord Opryland Resort Gardens.
It is an enormous hotel, resort, and convention center with 9-acres of meticulously maintained indoor gardens.
The gardens are organized into several atria (atriums…. English is weird)
In each of the atria, there are restaurants, shops, waterfalls, and various forms of entertainment, including a boat ride and fountain shows.
The whole thing is absolutely stunning.
Cascades
We entered through the hotel lobby which is open to the Cascades Atrium, and so that is where we began.
After wandering on the ground level for a moment, we quickly realized that we actually wanted to be up on the elevated walkway. And so up we went.
From the walkway, which wraps around the space, you get an amazing view of the entire space, including the two waterfalls.
Delta
Next we decided to move on to the Delta Atrium. It is massive. Half of the 9 acres of garden are in the Delta atrium.
As we were walking in, we saw a sign about animal encounters. And of course the kids wanted to do it. And so we found a worker. She helped us find out all we needed to know: where and at what time the encounters took place.
We had some time before the animal encounter, which gave us a bit of time to wander around and check things out (and get lost).
We saw SOOO many beautiful plants:
After getting lost several times, we knew to give ourselves plenty of time to make it over to the animal encounter. And it’s a good thing we did.
We definitely got lost some more. And in particular, having a stroller made it tricky too because the Delta area has three different levels. And navigating between those levels with a stroller was not easy.
It was mostly stairs. And we only saw (and used) one elevator. On several occasions, we just carried the stroller (usually even with twins in it) up and down the stairs.
In the end we made it, and we got to meet a turtle named Henry.
Poor Henry was born a wild turtle and then he was hit by a lawn mower. And then he was kept as an aquatic turtle for 15 years, even though he is not an aquatic species. Honestly, that made me so sad. Poor Henry.
After the animal encounter was over, we had been at the hotel for a few hours. And everyone was getting tired and despite our snacking, hungry. So we decided to head out.
We could have spent several more hours here, we didn’t even get to the last two smaller gardens.
The Gaylord Opryland hotel is a 5 minute walk from a mall (in fact that is where we parked, so we wouldn’t have to pay for parking. (I love the internet.) And on our way in, we had seen that there was a Dave and Busters right next to where we parked.)
So we walked over in that direction. And as we were walking, we heard multiple car alarms going off. The parking lot is MASSIVE and so it was really easy to lose your car. So, car alarms to the rescue!
The Grand ol Opry shares the same parking lot and so we decided to walk over real quick. We snapped a few pictures and wandered for a moment. And then headed over to Dave and Busters.
Dave and Busters was PACKED. It would have been a two hour wait. That was not going to work. We were already nearing a breaking point. And so we decided to just head out and go home.
We made it to the car, and tried to find a nearby Little Caesars. Cause everyone was starving. The closest one wasn’t taking online orders, so we decided to just drive on over. It quickly became apparent why they weren’t taking online orders. They just weren’t open.
There was another one just a few miles away (and closer to the house) and so we headed that direction. It was a little busy, but we eventually left with some pizza. By this point, it was about 3.
So, we were all crazy hungry and tired by the time we got home. We basically vegged the rest of the day.
Whew. What a day!
