Trip to Asheville- Day one and two

Took a little vacation from the garden and went to Asheville with my sister and her husband. Beautiful place - great weather. Spent first half day getting to know our Bed & Breakfast and eating.  Did I mention wonderful restaurants too?

We stayed at the Cedar Crest Inn B&B. This B&B has three houses. The main house is victorian and where we have Breakfast every morning. They keep coffee, tea, lemonade, water and wine along with some muffins, cookies and cakes available most of the day. All free- and we've partaken of all.  

We stayed in the Carriage House, just a short walk across this stone parking lot from the main house. There are two bedrooms downstairs (one is a suite) and one 2-bedroom suite upstairs. That is where we are staying. It's the least expensive option at this B&B and we are quite comfortable. We have two bedrooms and one full bath.  There is no one else staying here so we have the living room, kitchen, a powder room (which has a shower and washer and dryer), and the porches all to ourselves too.

Carriage House where we stayed

Carriage House living room

Creperie

The first day we had lunch at the Creperie Bouchon. Wonderful outdoor seating and a very nice lunch.  Jon had a wonderful watermelon gazpacho that I'd love to try and reproduce. Dorothy said her French onion soup was the best she's ever had. I had just read an article about French Fries in Asheville and who had the best; Bouchon was one of those listed, so I had to try. They put Herbs de Provence on them - very tasty..  Walked around Asheville downtown a little and spent some time in an antique store. I bought nothing - what restraint!

Then we went to the B&B and checked in. Had our first cookie and first glass of wine too. Read some on the porch and then some in our house.  Then off to eat again.

The Grove Park Inn (recently became an Omni Hotel) is an historic hotel in Asheville. It is enormous and is built of rocks - some of the newer additions are not, but it is quite a place.

Entrance to Grove Park Inn

View from the restaurant

Sunset Terrace where we ate

Dorothy and Jon at Sunset

High on a hill overlooking both a valley and some of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A beautiful setting and very good dinner.

Back to the house and more reading time - heavenly.


The next morning over to the B&B for breakfast: Fruit, muffin, some scrambled eggs with a nice piece of bacon and a piece of thick french toast. Lost of coffee.  Roll me out....

Then on to the Biltmore House and Gardens. We spent most of our time in the Gardens.  Did I mention I was with Dorothy? Gardens are beautiful.

Yellow fsection

Orange and Red garden

Annuals in high baskets
in the rose garden

White Garden

On Biltmore Porch

Eventually we got to the house. You cannot take pictures inside but can on a back porch. It's an enormous porch though you only see two chairs here. There must be 12 groups like this of chairs, tables, all 3-4 feet apart. The room just before this was a used during WW2 to store famous works of art by the Masters  taken from Washington Art gallery for protection. It had been reinforced and hidden from the house but is now open and wooden panels put on the walls.  The library is really an impressive room as well. Massive size and beautifully decorated; could have stayed there and read all day, if only he had invited me to visit.

Cut our visit short though to get to our reservation for High Tea at the Biltmore Inn.  After our "Amuse Bouche" of peppered watermelon, we smelled all the concoctions of tea and made our choices for which tea to have. Mine has the aromas of herb de provence.

Sandwiches at Tea

Then there were sandwiches - all yummy. This was followed by cheese with crackers and honey and four raspberries to share. Then followed the desserts - I forgot to take a picture of those - three tiers of plates.. we at some of each.  Waddled back to the car.  Then to the garden store at the Biltmore. Lots of pretty things, but only Dorothy bought anything,

Then Jon and I did a wine tasting. Might have been all that sweet stuff earlier but neither of us liked the wine enough to buy any.
Back to the B&B. Reading time.

Eventually we went out for a late bite, but instead ended up at a CVS buying cereal and milk and had that at the B&B about 10:30 at night. Why- not quite sure but it was good cereal.