One last stop before we end this roadtrip and head home. A few years ago we ventured down to North Carolina to cruise along the North Carolina Barbecue Trail. We only spent a few days on that trip hitting as many BBQ spots as we possibly could across the entire state. We always planned to go back and spend more time around the Asheville area. Well.....the time is now.
One of our first stops was to go back and tour the Sierra Nevada Brewery.....again! Why? For the free beer at the end of the tour, of course! This place is seriously amazing....and this tour was just as good as the first tour! We really loved most of the beer on tap....and the beer gods certainly know how to create a good vibe at this brewery. Who knows? We may actually go back someday and tour the place again!
Leonard wanted to track down this place and re-live some of his glory days. Even though we have a pinball machine in our basement.....this place has a little of everything. For $15 you could literally stay and play as long as you wanted to. We got permission to just walk through the museum and check out everything it had to offer before deciding if we (or just me) wanted to stay and play. It was a bit crowded and nothing really screamed out PLAY ME for a few hours.....but it was really neat seeing tons of old-and-new pinball machines all in one place.
Asheville is also known for its many craft breweries. We definitely wanted to hit up Wicked Weed while in town. This brewery specializes in west coast style hoppy ales (IPA's) which are a favorite of ours. The tap list was astounding and we sampled a large flight of their hoppiest beers. Jenesa also fell in love with a Session Sour loaded with watermelon and dragonfruit.
We planned our entire last day around touring the Biltmore Estate. This historic house, museum and tourist attraction in Asheville, NC is a Châteauesque-style mansion built for George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895. It is the largest privately owned house in the United States, and is still owned by George Vanderbilt's descendants. It remains one of the most prominent examples of Gilded Age mansions.
The price tag just to get inside the gates of this place was a whopping $70 per person. Then, an additional house or estate tour would cost you $25+ depending on what you wanted to see or do. And, yes.....there is lots to see!!! We've paid for expensive tours before but we did question how bad we wanted to see this place. Trust us.....it is worth it!
Vanderbilt named his estate Biltmore, derived from "De Bilt", Vanderbilt's ancestors' place of origin in the Netherlands, and "More", Anglo-Saxon for open, rolling land. Vanderbilt envisioned a park-like setting for his home and employed famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to design the grounds.
We definitely enjoyed visiting the Estate and taking the mansion tour. We'll spare you from reading the long history of the family, estate architecture and its many current attractions in this blog post. But it is well worth reading about and even visiting in the future. I know....I know.....$100+ per person to walk through a mansion and visit a wealthy old estate? I questioned it too, but felt I saw things that were every bit worth the price of admission (check out the indoor swimming pool and bowling alleys in the photo collage above). This place was absolutely amazing inside and out.
I think we would have spent even more time here if it weren't for the upcoming 9-hour drive home this afternoon. I know Paxton and Daxter really miss us! So our roadtrip is finally coming to an end. I plugged a short YouTube clip above just so you can check out some of the highlights of our tour.
0 comments:
Post a Comment