Quirky Guide

Best known as the spiritual home of country music and Dolly Parton, Nashville probably isn’t where you would expect to find a full-size replica of the Parthenon.

But just a short distance from the bluegrass bars, this art museum proves that some folk took the city’s moniker “the Athens of the South” a little too seriously.

Created in 1897 from plaster, wood and brick, the building’s construction and its concrete face-lift in the 1920s are told by the photographs found inside.

Also inside is a 14m-tall gilded recreation of the original Athena statue, flanked by plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles.

Watch out for it in the film Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, where it became a set designer’s best friend.