We woke up a little earlier on Thursday and were out of the hotel and sitting down for breakfast a little before 10:30. We were staying in Asheville again so that meant we would not need to drive much today. The one thing we wanted to do while in Asheville was visit the Biltmore Estate.
We went for breakfast to Tomato Jam, which had been recommended by our Roadfood book. What caught our eye were the homemade biscuits that were supposedly the size of cats’ heads! The breakfast did not disappoint. Chris had an egg sandwich on one of those huge biscuits. Jackie had a BLT with egg, plus an order of grits.
After breakfast we headed straight for the Biltmore Estate. We were not sure what to expect with the Biltmore House and Estate. The house is a mansion and is the largest private home in the US, at 135,000 square feet. To give you an idea of what 135,000 square feet looks like, the White House is 55,000 square feet. The house sits on an 8,000 acre estate that includes among other things, huge gardens, a winery, stables, and a 200+ room inn. We had read about this place before but decided to come here as it is featured in one of our travel books, 1000 Places to See Before You Die. The family still owns the estate but they no longer live there. It is now a tourist attraction. To say we were truly amazed would be an understatement.
The property was bought and the house built in the late 1890’s by George Washington Vanderbilt II, of the New York Vanderbilt family, as a summer home. The estate originally covered 125,000 acres and it is said that in the early 1900’s it took a week on horse to cover the entire property. A trip to the estate includes a tour of the house. Private tours are available which give you in depth, behind the scenes looks at different parts of the house, but being that this was our first time here, we chose the standard tour which you take at your own pace. We did purchase an MP3 player that gives you additional details that the standard pamphlet would not give you as you tour from room to room. Included in the 250 rooms is an indoor swimming pool, an indoor bowling alley, several game rooms, tons of bedrooms, huge dining areas, kitchens, rooms filled with artworks, and 19th-century novelties such as elevators, forced air heating, fire alarms and an intercom system. The house was also filled with numerous secret doors and passageways, which inspired Chris to possibly build false doors in our house when we get home. The house was often used for entertaining and Jackie commented that she could see herself living during that period. On the tour they commented that the people living at that time sometimes changed their clothes up to 8 times per day, depending on what kind of events the day held. We probably spent close to 3 hours touring the inside of the house, and that was only the common areas on the main tour. We were lucky to be here during the Festival of Flowers, which takes place in the spring when the flowers are in full bloom. After touring the inside of the house we toured the gardens probably for another hour or two. The landscape was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who also designed NY’s Central Park. There were a maze of paths through the garden and greenhouse areas, and we really took our time to explore the whole place.
Unfortunately, photographs were not allowed inside of the house but we did take some pictures of the outside and of the gardens.
After touring the gardens, we went on to the winery, where tastings and a tour were included in our tour ticket. We chose not to go on a tour of the winery; we just went for the tastings. For free, you were able to taste as many of their 22 different wines as you cared to try. Again, we bought more than 2 bottles of wine. Mom would be proud.
After leaving the estate pretty late in the day we headed back to the hotel with no real other plans for the day. However, as we got closer to the hotel Jackie spotted a church which we had read about and wanted to tour. Since some churches are open all the time, we decided to stop in. This was more than a church. This is the Basilica of St. Lawrence, located in downtown Asheville. A Basilica is special designation given by the Pope to certain churches because of their historical importance, antiquity, dignity, or significance as a place of worship. There are only 56 Basilicas in the US. What most impressed us with this place was how it was built. No wood or steel was used in construction of the building, only tiles and other masonry. The roof is tile with a copper covering and is dome shaped. The dome was built using thin layers of tile embedded in layers of mortar to create curved horizontal surfaces. This way of building creates a strong, fireproof, and attractive surface, and surprisingly supports the weight of the roof. The actual dome, again unsupported by any beams, measures 82 feet by 58 feet, and is considered the largest free standing elliptical dome in North America. The pictures taken from the inside do not really show the size and grandness of the dome.
After leaving the church we headed around the corner to a Cuban restaurant, Havana Comida Latina. We were going to eat in but we had beer in the cooler and our beer that we paid $15 for an 18-pack back home is much cheaper than the $15 we would have paid for two beers in the restaurant. So we got take-out. We read about this restaurant on foursquare (thanks Uncle Timmy), which is essentially an app for the phone that lets you kind of sign in to places and gain points as you sign in. The points don’t get you anything, just bragging rights. A cool feature of foursquare is you can leave tips for others. This restaurant had a lot of tips from past diners, plus we like Cuban food so we decided to go there. We each got a Cuban sandwich with sides of fried yucca, rice and beans, fried platanos, and empanadas. We also found yet another geocache while we were waiting for the food. This one was located right in the middle of downtown for anyone to see. The thing about it that made it unsuspecting to the average person is that it was disguised as a birdhouse. You simply lift the lid off of the birdhouse and inside is the geocache. Normally a birdhouse on the sidewalk in the middle of downtown would seem strange in itself, but this was right outside a birding supply store, so it wasn’t so strange after all. This is a popular way to hide caches. We think Uncle Tony will like this type of hide. We took our food back to the hotel and called it a night.
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