Experience the best of Franklin

Franklin, founded in 1799, has a Main Street of nineteenth-century brick shopfronts, cafés and a restored 1930s theatre at the centre of a large historic district. In November 1864 the town saw a fierce Civil War battle, remembered at the Carter House, whose walls still show bullet holes, and at Carnton, a plantation house that served as a field hospital.

Outside the town, the Harpeth River winds through farmland and horse country, and the Natchez Trace Parkway begins its run south-west through the hills nearby. The village of Leiper's Fork, known for its music, galleries and old general store, lies to the west, and Nashville, with its honky-tonks and recording studios, is a short drive north.

Southern cooking rules the menus: biscuits, fried chicken, barbecue and meat-and-three plates, with Nashville's hot chicken close by. Spring brings dogwood and redbud, summers run warm and humid, and autumn colours the hills around the town.