Then off to the Biltmore House (we have tickets for two days admission) and as the morning is coolish we're spending the morning inside the house. No photography is allowed so the only photo I've got is of the outside. It looks huge in the photo but that's not all: it covers four acres and has 250 rooms!!! and takes all morning to do the tour, us and 1000 others. (There are over a million visitors a year. )
We did the audio tour which is really good as you can move at your own pace and hear all the commentary as you're looking at the area. You start in the Winter Garden, decorated now to honour Tiffany because there is a Tiffany exhibition on elsewhere then to the Billiard Room and Banqueting Hall with its seven-story high ceiling and pipe organ, these days played by a computer. The table is set for 38 diners. In their heyday of the early 1900s the Vanderbilts were great entertainers and guests might stay for six weeks.
The tour continues with everything in the house amazingly lush and rich-looking while outside the rolling landscaped grounds covered in autumn-toned woods blend into the faraway blue mountains. George Vanderbilt built here in Asheville because he loved the mountains - so restful after the excesses of New York society life - 125,000 acres, just 9,000 left now; still privately owned and open every day to the public with of course restaurants and gift shops.
The Stable Gift Shop is selling Christmas decorations, all exquisite and totally unable to be transported.
Mrs Vanderbilt's bedroom was a worry because no closets but we found out why.
At 2pm (no lunch) we joined the Butler's Pantry Tour which takes you into the servants' part of the house starting with the Bachelors' Wing which is not accessible to the rest of the house. I wonder if it really kept them from the young ladies or were they forever traipsing through the Billiard Room?
We visited the housekeeper's room, the sewing room, the lady's maid's room and finally the huge area set aside for Mrs Vanderbilt's clothes. She may have changed six times a day so she needed LOTS. Very advanced for those times they had flush loos and showers but no hand-basins.
The butler's pantry is where the glass and china is stored on several levels with a catwalk and a dumb waiter to bring them down. Down down down we went right to the sub-basement where coal was burnt to supply electricity and heating, all of which was surprisingly interesting.
A long winding drive to exit took us through the estate which we will see in more detail tomorrow and back to the b&b for wine and cheese and a sit on rocking chairs on the porch looking out at the mountains.
Jim and Carol are locivores which means they try to eat local food rather than food that has travelled a long way which rules out eating at chains. Suits me as I wanted to have barbecue anyway - southern style because this is the South - so the host recommended Moe's as being authentic Bama BBQ (short for Alabama) and a huge plate of ribs and 2 sides for $11.25 ( I skipped the bananna pudding. )
Carol had discovered a knitting demonstration downtown at Purl's so she and I went - very interesting and I won a door prize of a JuniperMoon Farm pattern book. I may never knit anything from it but it was a nice ending to a super day.
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