Asheville, NC
Day 3
by
Kenny & Kristen
Posted on 2018-05-06
We slept in a bit on our last day and then headed out for breakfast. The first two places we checked were on crazy long waits, so we ended up grabbing some food at Tastee’s Diner. The food was pretty good and affordable. It seemed like the perfect place to cure a college hangover. Kenny got chicken and waffles covered in cheese sauce and pinaple jelly stuff… if that gives you an idea.
The main mission of the day was to check out the Biltmore Estate, which we had heard a lot of great things about but had never seen. Per normal, we were not well prepared. If you book your tickets at least 7 days in advance you get a $10 discount per ticket.
The landscape of the estate definitely lives up to all of the hype. It sits on 8,000 acres of rolling mountains and vibrant green trees. We bought our tickets and headed up to tour the main house. George Vanderbilt began construction of the house starting in 1889 and it was completed on Christmas Even of 1895. The house is full of intricate luxuries and impressive technology for its’ time, including electricity and an elevator that is still running today. It also had 43 separate bathrooms and probably a million fireplaces (okay, not really – but close).
The basement even had a 70,000 gallon pool and a two-lane bowling area for recreation.
From the house we headed out to the grounds where we toured a walled garden, a bunch of greenhouses, and an azalea garden. I know nothing about plants, but the flowers were beautiful and smelled of fresh spring.
We also followed a short path out to the bass pond where there were some nice benches to view the scenery and relax. It was neat to sit there and imagine what it would have been like 100 years ago before there were so many other people walking around and cars zipping down the road near-by.
The pond was built using a dam and a waterfall to capture the water and then feed the stream down below. There were a bunch of other trails and activities to do at the Biltmore like horse back riding, hiking, biking, etc. You could easily spend an entire weekend at the estate enjoying the grounds. From we headed back to Raleigh for some FroYo and to get ready for Monday… Kristen’s Super Secret Surprise Birthday Weekend = Success
