Where to stay in Nashville: the best neighbourhoods and hotels

This is the Nashville on the postcards. Lower Broadway is a few blocks of neon-lit honky-tonks, each with live music on every floor from mid-morning until well after midnight, plus rooftop bars, boot shops and a steady parade of hen parties on pedal-powered bar crawls. The Ryman Auditorium sits just off the strip, the Country Music Hall of Fame is a short walk south and Bridgestone Arena, home of the Predators ice hockey team, anchors the top of the street.

South of Broadway, SoBro is where the big modern hotels cluster around the Music City Center convention hall. You trade a little character for space, pools and rooftop views, and you can still be on Broadway in five minutes. Light sleepers should ask for a high floor or look a few blocks away: this part of town does not do quiet on a Saturday night.

A few blocks north of Broadway, downtown gets older and handsomer. Second Avenue is lined with red-brick Victorian warehouses that now hold bars and restaurants, Printers Alley has been Nashville's late-night hideout for generations, with blues and jazz clubs tucked under its fire escapes, and the Tennessee State Capitol looks down on it all from its hill.

This is where to stay for hotels with a story. The Hermitage is the city's grande dame, all Beaux Arts marble and a fireplace in the lobby, while newer boutique hotels celebrate the city's old printing trade or fill an 1899 building on Second Avenue. You are close enough to walk to the honky-tonks and just far enough away to sleep afterwards.

The Gulch was a tangle of railway sidings not so long ago. Now it is Nashville's most polished neighbourhood, a grid of glassy apartment blocks, boutiques, cocktail bars and some of the city's most talked-about restaurants. Instagram queues form at the angel-wings mural, and the legendary Station Inn still hosts bluegrass jams in its unassuming little building.

It suits couples and anyone who wants a buzzy base without Broadway's full volume. Downtown is a 10 to 15 minute walk, or a very short taxi ride, and Midtown's bars are just up the road. Hotels here are mostly sleek and modern, several with rooftop terraces looking back at the skyline.

West of downtown, Broadway turns into West End Avenue and the crowd gets younger and more local. Vanderbilt University's leafy campus sits at the heart of Midtown, and the streets around it are packed with bars, live-music joints and late-night food. Centennial Park, home to a full-size replica of the Parthenon, is the place for a morning walk to recover.

Hotels here have real personality: a playful one with a karaoke bar and a pink rooftop restaurant, an industrial-chic one with a seasonal rooftop pool, a Curio with poolside cabanas. Prices tend to be a little kinder than downtown, and Broadway is a 10-minute drive or a long, pleasant walk away.

Music Row is where the business of country music actually happens. The tree-lined avenues around 16th and 17th are full of record labels, publishers and studios in converted houses, including RCA Studio B, where Elvis and a long list of legends cut their records. It looks surprisingly sleepy by day; the magic is going on indoors.

A handful of characterful hotels sit on the edge of the Row, between Midtown's bars and the Gulch, with Broadway's honky-tonks about a mile away. It is a good choice if you want music history on your doorstep and somewhere calmer to come home to.

Wedgewood-Houston, WeHo to locals, is an old industrial quarter that artists got to first. Warehouses now hold galleries, studios, coffee roasters and taprooms, and the Fairgrounds and the Geodis Park football stadium are on the doorstep. Next door, the historic Waverly area has leafy streets of old houses.

This is the place for a longer stay or a more local feel: think apartment-style suites with kitchens and rooftop terraces, or a bed and breakfast in a historic house, rather than big hotels. Downtown is about a mile and a half away, so you will want taxis in the evening.

East of downtown, in a bend of the Cumberland River, Music Valley is home to the Grand Ole Opry, the long-running country radio show that still packs out its hall several nights a week. Next door, the Gaylord Opryland resort is a sight in its own right, with acres of indoor gardens, waterfalls and walkways under giant glass atriums, plus the Opry Mills shopping mall up the road.

It is a good base for families and anyone with a car, and the airport hotels nearby make sense for early flights: several are five minutes or less from the terminal, one is actually at it, and downtown is about eight miles away. Do not stay out here if Broadway is the point of your trip.

Franklin, about 20 miles south of Nashville, is the small-town Tennessee of your imagination: a Main Street of restored brick buildings, antique shops, boutiques and live music bars, with Civil War battlefields and old plantation houses on its edges. It makes a lovely, unhurried base if you have a car and want to dip into Nashville rather than live in it.

Between Franklin and the city, Brentwood is leafy and suburban, with good-value suite hotels within about 20 minutes of downtown and plenty of free parking. Both work well for families and road-trippers heading on to Memphis or the Smoky Mountains, but neither suits a night out on Broadway unless someone else is driving.