Vacation Blog Part 3

Currently Reading: Nothing. I'm between Books

Tuesday 9:30 PM EST

GREAT NEWS! I woke up feeling much better after a restless night's sleep. I'm not sure what it was that did the job. Maybe it was a combination of things. I wasn't 100% but I was more than well enough.

Today we went to the Biltmore Estate which is about an hour and a half from here over in North Carolina. That may seem like a long drive to some but it is totally worth the drive.

For starters, this isn't some trip through boring farm land or prarie scrub. The Biltmore is on the other side of the Smokey Mountains so you drive though some gorgeous scenery.

The estate itself belongs to the Vanderbilt family. Yes, THAT Vanderbilt family. One of the richest families in the world from way back. Unlike a lot of the super rich though, they were pretty generous with their money. There's a reason why so many schools, hospitals and libraries have buildings named after one Vanderbilt or another.

The first impression you get is that this is one huge chunk of property. Sure is. It's so big you really can't grasp it. Then you see the model of it in the welcoming area. They've made a scale model of the entire estate grounds showing you where the various buildings are.

We went to the main house which looks like the kind of manor houses you see in Europe. It's more like a small castle. As you walk into the entrance hall, right away it's hard to imagine someone actually living there. It's just o HUGE!

We took the audio tour. That's one of those self-paced tours where you get an MP3 player and punch in the number of the room you're in. You walk the whole house, four floors and a basement and it take two hour or so. Actually you skip two big sections but given the layout of the house, the missed rooms are just more guest bedrooms and servant quarters.

Walking through you see quite a bit of history and not just from the US. Remember, these people have serious money so they've acquired quite a collection of items from Europe. They have a chess set that belonged to Napoleon. Some of the tapestries were woven in the 1500's. Two tapestries belonged to Cardinal Richelieu.

They have a wonderful library as well. George Vanderbilt had over 10,000 volumes in different languages. The room itself only housed part of it but it's two stories high. It even has secret doors so guests could sneak in and borrow a book without bothering everyone.

We went through the house and the gardens. There are several other buildings including a winery but we'd already run out of energy. It's the kind of place that really takes more than one visit to see everything.

Drove back to the hotel, had some dinner, and that was it. We'd set the day aside for just that trip and it took up the whole day.

Tomorrow is our last day here. It's sort of an open day. No real plans. We'll hit some of the smaller stores we've been driving by the past two days. We may go back to Gatlinburg or to the park. Not sure yet.

1. Wouldn't you know it, cold on Monday so we dress warm. Today it's all rain. Weather forecasts aren't very accurate here.
2. Not as many old people at the Biltmore. We were only out-numbered 7 to 1.
3. Saw lots of bored husbands and kids. The Biltmore, to kids, must be really dull stuff.
4. The trees in NC had more color.
5. CC fell asleep on the way back. She just slowly leaned over to her left until she was hanging from the seat belt. It was funny and cute but I couldn't get a picture because I was driving obviously, and the roads were too twisty.
6. Folks in Memphis rave about Graceland and the tour there but after what I saw today Graceland sucks. :-)