If you are just joining us check out Day 1 here.
We ended up with so many pictures from day 2 and I couldn’t narrow it down so I decided to break it up into to posts. The first one will be on the Biltmore Estate and the second one will be at the campground we stayed at, the campground is going on our top 5 favorite campground list!!
So we had intended on making it to Asheville, NC area on our first day, but with the stops to make adjustments on the camper we ended up stopping in Northern Georgia the first night. We made some breakfast in the camper, brewed a pot of coffee and hit the road nice and early.
We made it to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville about 10am. After a quick snack in the camper we started off by exploring the grounds since we had all been in the car for a few hours and needed to stretch our legs. The grounds are beautiful!! I am going to apologize again for the picture overload but it was too hard to choose my favorites.
After we tired ourselves out running around, we headed up to the main house for the tour. Although we already paid the admission of $49 per adult (we bought tickets online the day before to get a $10 discount) we decided to rent one of the audio tour handsets for an additional $10. You walk through the house at your own pace and type the room number into the handset to hear about that room. The house was pretty easy to navigate with our BOB jogger stroller. If I was going back for a day trip I would probably take a smaller umbrella stroller, but since we were saving space and only brought one stroller with us, the jogger worked just fine. You are not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the house but if you are curious you can check them out on their website.
Included in the price of the daily admission is a tour of the winery and wine tasting. We headed that way after the house tour. On our drive over to the winery Aiden fall asleep in his carseat, so we transferred him to his stroller when we got there and he was asleep for a blissful 30 minutes of the tasting. I’m not sure if it is teething or just because he is about to turn 2 years old and in the car seat a lot on our travel days, but the last week or so he has been really fussy. When he woke up he was not happy at all, so Tav and I took turns walking around with him while the other tasted more wine.
The “bartenders” (is that what you call them at a wine only spot??) were wonderful!! They knew a ton about the wines, had great suggestions on what to try and they didn’t kick us out for having a fussy kid at an obviously very adult place. There were tons of families there, so don’t let that prevent you from exploring the winery if you have kids…. but those families didn’t have a screaming toddler… Let’s just say that the wine helped with the evening of fussiness that was before me.
So that was the first half of Day 2. More to come on the campground that we stayed at and the beautiful views we had from our site.
Beautiful picture of the Airstream with Biltmore in the background. I was last there in 1976 and it was quite the something. Brought back a lot of memories. Thanks for sharing! What a great trip you’re having. Its really something when you have to split the day into two posts!
I love reading your story. I live in Fort Myers Florida and plan on moving to the Ashville area. I have lived in Florida for 35 years and have been going to that part of NC for 20 years!!!
Kristin, I grew up in Ft Myers and that is where we started our trip from!! (I can’t remember if I included that in my post from that day) if we did not live by the water, Tavis and I have always said that a place in the mountains like Asheville would be our first pick!! Enjoy your time up there to get out of the FL heat!! 😉