How The 1% Lived

Who are these people & what are they doing here at my house?

It seems we actually did save the best for last. A crystal clear blue sky greeted us with full sun streaming in the windows this morning. Finally, no snow squalls or clouds! I was excited to begin our excursion to to The Biltmore. Mr. Russo, not so much. Don is not a fan of ostentation, Lord knows he’s a simple man. We grab some coffee & a quick bite then off we go.

Although it is still cold, the sun makes all the difference. We park the car & decide to forgo the shuttle ride from the parking lot so we head to the house on foot. An old friend, Diane “Bunderwoman” Bundy, instructed me to spend the extra $10 for the audio tour. The audio tour is housed in a cell phone like device that you wear around your neck and hold up to your ear. You punch in the numbers of the rooms that correspond to the paper guide and it gives you a great deal of information, much of it from the mouths of the Vanderbilt descendants. It even has an option to plug in additional numbers for extra stories. Considering their are school groups and private tours and everyday tourists without any  embellishments running around the place with you the audio tour allows you to get in depth information and explore at your own place. Well worth it.

Don on one of the terraces

What can I say about the house? It’s the closest thing we have in this country to a castle. You cannot take any photographs inside the house. It is chock full of amazing stuff. Once you get into the entrance hall, you proceed into the “winter garden” which is actually a huge atrium with a curved glass ceiling and a huge center fountain. Today, it is full of the most gorgeous collection of orchids I’ve ever seen. Orchids are the theme that run throughout the house and it is loaded with them.

You tour 3 levels of the home that includes banquet hall and breakfast room, billiard room, swimming pool, gym, music room, smoking room, tapestry gallery, library, living quarters and bedrooms as well as the servant’s areas like kitchens and laundry which were amazingly equipped with the most modern appliances of the time. It takes a good 2 hours or so to complete the inside tour. Then you are free to wander the rest of the estate.

We are visiting at probably one of the most uninteresting times of the year. There is not a whole lot in bloom on the grounds yet but that doesn’t preclude me from wanting to plod through the Spring Garden, the Azalea Garden, The Boat House, Bass Pond & The Conservatory. We tromp around the grounds for another couple of hours finally winding up inside The Conservatory, which is essentially a very large & fancy greenhouse.

In the Spring Garden

For some reason, Don does not delight in the wonders of the gardens the way I do and when some elderly woman asks him if he knows what kind of flower is in front of them he does his best not to laugh in her face.

Two impressive specimens

At one point in the Conservatory I overhear a couple speaking to each other wishing that they could get a picture together on this bench. I volunteer to help out and ask if they would reciprocate by taking our photo. They oblige and we now have the only picture this trip that proves we were travelling together.

The Conservatory is divided into a “hothouse”, a “cool house”, a potting room, a succulents room and it houses all types of exotic plants & flowers. There is a woman playing a dulcimer inside and there is a big terrace out back. It was actually a lovely day to wander there.

Don tiptoes through the tulips

The Conservatory

“I do this all for you!”

By the time we climb our way back up to the main house I feel like my hips will dislocate. However, that doesn’t stop me from checking out the old stable area which is now a retail shopping area. I still want to head back to Downtown Asheville to visit a chocolate shop that has won world renown for it’s truffles. Don suggests that we have a late lunch at The Laughing Seed, a well known vegetarian restaurant. It is payback for me going to the Little Pigs with him yesterday. Considering, he may never offer to eat in a strict vegetarian restaurant again I decide to take him up on the offer and we hike back to the parking lot. (See a photo of
Don’s delicious vegetarian lunch on our Facebook
page: Carmageddon)

We bid farewell to The Biltmore after deciding that even if we could live this way, we probably wouldn’t.

I spend an obscene amount of money on chocolate and we return to our room totally exhausted. We hit the hot tub and decide that we will leave Asheville a day early since the weather is supposed to continue to be nice and drive back home up the picturesque Blue Ridge Parkway. I am already picking out the places I want to stop along the way. This will be a 2 day trip home.

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