The Biltmore House
December 4-5, 2009
Those Vandy's are everywhere. Right across the street from my apartment in the form of a rather large university... and just over the state line in North Carolina, at the
Biltmore Estate, as Ellen and I discovered this past weekend.
I don't really know how it started. A month or so ago, El mentioned she'd like to drive over to Asheville at some point during Christmas because she'd never seen the Biltmore house, and even though I've been a few times before this, I love it, so I was game.
We picked a weekend, put it on the calendar and worked on a plan. Because when you put something on the calendar, it's a done deal.
Candlelight Christmas Evenings are "the thing" to do at the Biltmore during the holidays. They keep the house open after hours and allow night visits, turning on all the Christmas lights, lighting fires in the fire places, and bringing in choirs and musicians to play Christmas music. It's just a fantastically Christmas-y wonderland.
Or as Ellen called the weekend, CWE (Christmas Weekend Extravaganza).
Our journey started Friday morning and, of course, the normal 4.5 hour trip was extended an hour due to a rock slide on I-40 that has closed an entire section of the interstate for at least six months. The detour took us through Nascar country, though, which was really a treat. Ha.
We got to Asheville and went straight to the
Grove Park Inn (also fabulous) to see the Gingerbread Houses from the National Gingerbread Competition, only to find they'd been dispersed throughout the inn, due to some sort of medical conference in the room where they normally keep all the winning entries. No bother, though, Ellen got some free coffee from the medical convention table. Nice. And we did see a few of the gingerbreads, but decided not to go on a scavenger hunt through the hotel for the others.
The Grove ParkAnyway. We left the Grove Park and drove over to the Biltmore Estate, got checked into our hotel and then ready for the evening, which included dinner at the Bistro restaurant on the estate and our night time visit to the house.
Dinner and a wine flight, which is apparently similar to a beer sampler, but has a cooler name.The Biltmore was lovely as always, a choir singing carols in the entry hall's "Winter Garden" as we followed the line of people through the house, stopping to point out favorites and oddities along the way.
Looks very ominous in the dark.
It's possible that Ellen snuck a picture of the choir in the Winter Garden.The library was designed around a beautiful ceiling painting, originally found at a palace in Venice. As we walked through, we heard the man in front of us say, "Old Mr. Vanderbilt must have been a perv." I assume he was looking up at the paining, which has a nude woman in it. Yeah, Nascar lover, the first assumption I'd make in this room of floor to ceiling books, is that Vanderbilt was a perv. That or he loved classical art and you're an idiot. Ellen looked at me and said, "We need to linger for a second and let him move on. I can't listen to idiotic comments all night." Agreed. But we did laugh at him at various stops the rest of the evening. I mean, really? Some people...
At the entrance to Biltmore. Why do rich people put lions on either side of their front doors? This sepia happened accidentally, by the way. Not sure what I did, but I like it.We finished at the house and headed back to the hotel, too tired for any other activities. And
Criminal Minds was on. Ha!
Saturday, we had passes to the grounds and another house visit with audio guides. I don't know if you know this about her, but Ellen loves an audio guide. So, we went through the house, this time hearing stories about the rooms and the inhabitants along the way. It was pretty cool. So strange that this house was so thoroughly lived in. I mean, it was a family home with kids and visitors that stayed for weeks and months at a time. And why not, I mean, it has 250 rooms and its 175,000 square feet would equal out to around 4 acres if the house was all one story. Insane.
Audio guide excitement.
Did I mention it was snowing when we woke up that morning?
And FREAKING cold outside?
Oh yeah. And windy.
She could totally be a Vanderbilt.
Ellen found the bathroom stalls on the grounds of the Biltmore to be a bit discriminatory toward tall people.
But I also noticed that some of the toilets were high set, not always accommodating to the shorter set - seems Bitmore needs to work on their bathrooms.We waved our last goodbye to the house, then rode over to the Biltmore Winery for a tour and tasting. Our tasting helper lady was not very nice, little sour puss, but we were not deterred by her moodiness.
At the Winery (which used to be a dairy).
Studying the list options.A little downtown Asheville (very cute) exploration outside the grounds of the estate - Mast General Store, which I'd never been to before, had huge bins of candy that we helped ourselves to - and then we were on our way back to Nashville.
Lovely, lovely Christmas-y excursion with my sweet friend.
