36 hours in Nashville, Tennessee

Ryan Ellis Band at Tootsie's Orchild Lounge. [Photo/Agencies]

6:30 PM

Grand ole evening: The sexy, bourbon-centric bar on the ground floor of Husk - a luminary in the new constellation of ambitious restaurants and a sister to the original in Charleston, South Carolina - is a good place to alight for a drink (cocktails start at $9) and snack to start the evening. If they're on the menu, order the Rappahannock oysters, with green garlic butter, bottarga and preserved lemon ($14), which are served warm and will sate you through a show at the Ryman. The storied auditorium, built in 1892, before the advent of microphones, sells daytime tours, but to get the full effect of the exceptional acoustics, go at night, when a full range of musicians, as disparate as the local hero Vince Gill and the English misanthrope Morrissey, have taken the stage. (Ticket prices vary.)

9:00 PM

Nashville on Hudson: Called Nashvegas for its glitzy glamour, the city could just as easily be called the sixth borough of New York. It is filled with Manhattan refugees, while lots of creative companies are setting up shop here as a cheaper, nicer alternative. And in the gentrifying Germantown section, there's Rolf and Daughters, which might have been plucked from Dumbo and inserted into its century-old brick warehouse - except for the Southern charm: an unflappable bartender, a waitress with great food knowledge yet no pretense, and a kitchen that turns out what it calls "modern peasant food" but is, in fact, deft and sophisticated. Recent menu items include a starter of beets with cashew butter and aleppo pepper ($13) and a surprisingly light squid-ink pasta with shrimp and pancetta ($17).

11:00 PM

Neon Lights: The honky-tonks on and around Broadway are classic, just as corny and twangy, loud and boozy as you'd hoped they'd be. Many charge no cover, but drinking is encouraged. You can do a little planning and check nowplayingnashville.com in advance, or you can just squeeze into Tootsie's Orchid Lounge to see who's standing and singing on the bar, or hit Robert's Western World for some traditional country heartbreak or, darlin', set right down anywhere in between. It'll be all right.