So where were we...ah yes, Natural Bridge, VA. After a very awesome day in Natural Bridge, we headed for Asheville, North Carolina. It was about a four hour drive and after four hours driving that morning and a long day in Natural Bridge...we were already pretty tired. So it felt like a VERY long drive to Asheville. We got excited when we got near the Virginia state line. Lucy got her camera out to take a picture of the state sign. As we passed it we read "Welcome to Tennessee!" Wait, what? I thought we were entering North Carolina...so that was a little bit of a surprise. Turns out our GPS, which we decided to name Gabriella Priscilla Smithington (Gabby for short), just decided to send us through a corner of Tennessee on our way into North Carolina.
Shortly after entering Tennessee, it got dark. Really dark. I started saying "Why aren't there any lights out here?!" And then the road suddenly veered up at a 45 degree angle. Apparently we were driving through a mountain range, but it was hard to tell since I couldn't see ANYTHING around me. I suspect we were driving through the Great Smokey Mountains, but again, hard to tell when everything is pitch black. Don't get me wrong, I have great headlights, but it is SERIOUSLY dark out there. And I couldn't use my brights because of all the cars coming the other way. Of course there were very few people on our side of the road...don't know why we were the only ones who wanted to go that way. Another car did show up near us after a while though. And then it almost smashed into us. I mean seriously, there are almost no other cars in the road and the guy manages to nearly hit us when he changes lanes. What a bozo. I don't know if he was drunk or texting or drunk-texting or just falling asleep. But I was mad.
So FINALLY we re-entered civilization. We were so happy to see lights again. We pulled into the parking lot of our hotel and I turned off the car. We were SO relieved to be alive and to be DONE driving for the day. I started laughing. Lucy started crying. We were just very relieved.
The next day was a great day. We went to visit the Biltmore! It was built by George Washington Vanderbilt when he was 33 years old. He was single at the time and apparently, some people speculated that with an estate the size of the Biltmore, George would become a recluse and never marry. But eventually he did marry a woman named Edith. I can only hope that there is a 33-year-old bachelor with a large estate who wants to marry me.
The Biltmore!
Lucy and her Biltmore ticket. Just after this picture, we headed down the stairs and into the front garden. On our way down the long shallow steps that were only an inch or two high each, I said, "Oh Lucy, when I was in Rome someone told me that steps like these are for-" and Lucy said "Strollers." I said, "No...horses." And then we just laughed. Strollers? Really? Where did that come from? :)
Lucy and the lion guarding the entrance. Totally checking her out.
A very stately porch light.
The Biltmore was amazing. It's HUGE of course, and so lavishly decorated. I was sad we weren't permitted to take pictures indoors, but I guess the pictures wouldn't have done it justice anyway. And now, here are a few random/interesting facts that Lucy and I learned on our audio tour of the Biltmore:
1) The dining hall was seriously enormous. George had flags for all of the 13 original colonies AND a replica of the flag flown by Christopher Columbus on his voyage to America all displayed in the dining room. And there was an organ in the dining room. A full on organ with pipes and everything. Apparently Mr. Vanderbilt was very fond of the opera.
2) In the breakfast room, Mr. Vanderbilt displayed some Renoir paintings. Renoir wasn't even famous at the time Vanderbilt bought the paintings...he mostly just bought them to support new artists. Good call.
3) There was one room just off to the left of the entrance hall that was left incomplete, it was never furnished or decorated when George Vanderbilt was alive. It is now the music room. However, when America entered WWII, the National Gallery in Washington DC approached the Vanderbilts and asked if they would be willing to store the Gallery's artwork at the Biltmore. So throughout the war, a large portion of the national gallery's collection was stored in the unfinished music room at the Biltmore!
4) The library was AWESOME. George Vanderbilt had something like 23,000 books. Apparently he spoke several foreign languages and was able to read 4 foreign languages. And he loved reading. I think only 12,000 or so of his books or on display in the library. Many of the others are in "the archives" or displayed in other portions of the house. But seriously, the library was wall to wall books. Also in the library, Napoleon Bonaparte's chess set. The ACTUAL set that Napoleon played while exiled in St. Helena. So crazy.
There were loads and loads of other rooms. The bedrooms were gorgeous and the servants rooms and kitchens were super interesting. We loved the gymnasium and pool areas. Although...I have to say, William Randolph Hearst had way prettier pools at Hearst Castle...cool mosaics and porticoes and stuff. The one at the Biltmore was a more practical pool swimming pool. But in its defense, it had lights UNDER the water back when electricity was kind of a new-fangled thing. I'm glad no one was electrocuted.
After we completed our audio tour of the house, Lucy and I had lunch at the Stables Cafe. They had just renovated the former stables and made it a restaurant. So that was kind of cool. We had warm pimiento cheese which was SO good and I had the Carolina BBQ. Lucy had....the BBQ hamburger, right Lucy? I can't remember now. Anyway, it was all quite delicious. When we finished lunch we had way too much fun shopping.
Next we headed to the Biltmore Gardens. Fortunately we were permitted to take pictures in the gardens. And so we did. And here they are.
Inside the greenhouse.
Lucy, inside the greenhouse.
Me on a bench that may have been meant for children.
A butterfly!
A striped hibiscus - I'd never seen one before. It was gorgeous.
Me in a lattice frame - there was some other..."poses" but I have chosen not to post those. :)
Pretty roses.
Close up of the pretty roses.
You can't really tell from this picture at all, but the flowers were in the shape of a dragonfly. maybe you can only tell from the sky.
Lucy and a...zinnia...or something. I'm actually really not sure what that flower is.
Lucy and the greenhouse exterior.
Me and the greenhouse exterior.
Lucy in the greenhouse.
Me in the greenhouse. And that is how I got a big green moss smudge on my jeans.
And that concludes our wonderful trip to the Biltmore. We had a grand time. At the end of the day we went back to our hotel and relaxed. We were very relieved that we didn't have a long drive ahead of us that night.
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