Asheville & The Biltmore

Michael and I packed up our bags and headed to Asheville for our postponed 5th Anniversary trip at the beginning of the month.

We had to drive the whole way there in a pretty bad rain storm which was not a lot of fun =(

Our first afternoon there, I was fortunate enough to have an amazing massage arranged at the famous Grove Park Inn & Spa. I was almost giddy with excitement at the thought of the pampering I was going to have!

In case those of you from out of town haven’t heard of the Grove Park Inn and Spa…. Enjoy these images from their website b/c they don’t allow cameras in the facility….

and hence the reason I was SOOOOO looking forward to this day… The entire Spa is built like this… Eucalyptus Steam Rooms, Hot Tubs, Chromotherapy Pools….

Okay so I start my afternoon of luxury and am in heaven! My massage started and shortly there after (to make a VERY long story short) the POWER WENT OUT TO THE ENTIRE INN and SPA!!! Although the massage itself was still nice, the room got very cold and there was tons of noise outside the room as staff was scurrying to get things lit up with candles. All the pools and hot tubs were without power (and heat) and I was given a flashlight to find my own way back up to the pitch black women’s dressing room. I was sooooo dissapointed!!! I have emailed them as the afternoon was pretty pricey and they didn’t offer me anything to come back or any money back even though the afternoon was completely ruined.

Well moving on right?

Michael and I stayed at an AWESOME place… It’s called the White Gate Inn and our room was fabulous! We had a fireplace in front of the bed, an amazing tub and Mike tells me the shower changed his life (I could barely get him out of it!!!!) We stayed in the Maya Angelou Suite…

but we had a really hard time choosing… this was the bathroom in one of the other rooms….


The room was so cozy and even had a decorated Christmas Tree set up! We weren’t able to have breakfast in the Inn so they sent muffins and hot cocoa to our door =)

We spent an entire day and into the night visiting the Biltmore while we were there… Talk about Massive… The Biltmore is the Country’s largest privately owned home. Seeing it in person makes the photos seem embarrassing…

Stock Photo:

Enjoying the grounds even though it was FREEZING!!!


The Blue Ridge Mountains reminded me of Vermont…

So this is what we got to experience:

and here is a photo I took on the front lawn during our visit for the Candlelight Christmas Tour:

It’s a little sad that the big things we did on our trip didn’t allow photography, but we had an AWESOME time…. we spent the whole day on the ground of the Biltmore, toured the house, went to the Winery and did LOTS of tastings, had a romantic dinner at the Deerpark Restaurant….


We even got a “cheesy” Biltmore photo in front of the Winder Garden and ended up using it on our Christmas Cards this year…


A stranger took this one for us:








We were so bitten by the Christmas Spirit that we decided to take a detour on our way home and head to Linville Falls NC where it is the Christmas Tree Capital of the Country. We picked out a Farm and had fun wandering around looking for the perfect tree!

They give you a bamboo stick with all of the measurements on it so you can see how tall the trees are…. This one would probably have been a little big for our house…
Here we are with our perfect tree =)

and then they cut it and got us all situated for the long ride back to Raleigh =)

Here is how she ended up looking in the house:

Up Next…. Christmas 2009!!!