Editor’s note: In the second installment of “The Travelers,” I write about our July 7-9 trip to Birmingham, Alabama.

Maybe we just caught it at a bad time.

It rained all day Saturday, so no outdoor activiites. We planned to go to Ruffner Mountain, Birmingham Botanical Gardens — outdoor places I read wonderful things about. Instead, we ambled through an empty husk of downtown Birmingham and its rain-soaked builidngs.

The Birmingham Museum of Art is very nice. Admission is free, as well as parking. It’s located downtown. I’m no art expert (I’m trying to learn more), but it was a very satisfying collection.

For dinner, we ate at Dreamland BBQ, but went to the original location in Tuscaloosa instead of Birmingham. It was wonderful. Dreamland’s Tuscaloosa location is a little out of the way — off exit 73 and Jug Factory Road. The magical GPS lead us to the door. It’s a dumpy place in a weird residential-industrial part of town. It feels like a roadhouse. The warm smell coaxes you inside. It must be wonderful in the winter.

It’s dark inside. Dim lights. Lots of license plates and autographs on the walls. The menu is simple — ribs, rib sandwich, banana pudding. No vegetables. When you order a slab of ribs, you get a stack of white bread and two containers of BBQ sauce. The ribs are perfect. The staff is wonderful. Surely, the place is full of squiinty-eyed tourists trying to figure out how to eat ribs with a fork. But the Dreamland people treat you like a local.

The forecast called for more rain Sunday for Birmingham. We’d felt that we’d seen as much of the “Magic City” (I left my wand at home, apparently) as we could. So, we chucked it all and drove to Nashville for a wonderful Sunday afternoon. It’s an easy 2 hours and 45 minutes from Birmingham to Nashville.

Nashville truly is one of my favorite cities, and I go there at least once or twice a year. This was our second trip to Nashville this year. It’s cosmopolitan-country, if I can cobble together a phrase. At any time of the day or night, any day of the week, any time of the year, you can go to Broadway and check out the honky-tonks. Even if you hate country music, you’d love it.

Fortunately, the bands in places like The Stage, Tootsies and the Bluegrass Inn usually play the old country music that I like. But even when they’re playing that twangy pop the record companies now try to pass off as country music, it’s fun to watch the people in the honky-tonks.
As I said, Nashville has its old country side and a booming cosmopolitan side. It’s an energetic place. New construction is popping up all over town. Big high-rise condo buildings rise along the west side of downtown. I spent some time around West End Avenue, Vanderbilt and Hillsboro Village — fun areas with all kinds of great shops and restaurants.

Nashville also has the world’s only full-sized replica of the Parthenon. It’s in beautiful Centennial Park, and you should walk around inside. The Parthenon serves as an art museum and includes a 42-foot-high statue of Athena Parthenos. If you’ve ever seen the great 1975 film “Nashville,” the final scene — the rally for Hal Phillip Walker — takes place at the Parthenon.

The drive from Birmingham to Nashville was not bad at all, and I’m thinking of taking advantage of the cheaper Birmingham airfare for my Nashville visits. We had a fine first experience on Express Jet, which takes you to BHM for $98.

Maybe if I go back to Nashville via BHM, I’ll take a day to do those outdoor things around Birmingham. But beyond that…