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Our last stop was Asheville, home of the famous Biltmore mansion and a prominent city for artists in North Carolina, where we stayed for several nights.

We stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast called Cedar Crest Inn, which is only about two miles away from the entrance to Biltmore. The inn is a Victorian style three story building that offers lovely accommodations. James and I stayed in the “Tower Room,” a room on the third floor that overlooked a main street, and had an old-fashioned tub in the bathroom.

We explored some antique shops and artisan shops in downtown Asheville, before heading to the Biltmore.

The Biltmore, on thousands of acres of land and in the Blue Ridge Mountains, commissioned in 1895 by George Vanderbilt, is a breath-taking and overwhelming structure. It is also the U.S.’s largest privately owned home. Bill Cecil, great-grandson of Vanderbilt and President and CEO of the Biltmore estate, is the current owner.

Vanderbilt first visited beautiful Asheville in 1888, and very soon after began purchasing land there. The Biltmore Estate is currently 8,000 acres. The estate was designed and built by Richard Morris Hunt and the garden and grounds were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.

The Biltmore has 250 rooms (4 acres of floor space) and multiple floors, including a basement that holds an indoor bowling alley and indoor pool, as well as several rooms built as servant’s quarters.

James and I spent an extensive amount of time on the grounds first. We greatly enjoyed the Biltmore Conservatory located in the estate’s walled garden, before walking around the pond and winding our way back to the main building.

We spent about an hour and a half walking through the building, going up and down multiple flights of stairs and trying to decide which way to turn our heads.

After finishing the tour, we spent some time shopping in the Biltmore gift shops, which offered some beautiful and affordable items.

The next day, we went back but this time we attended the Biltmore Winery, and tasted several wines before picking the Cardinal’s Crest to take home with us. We highly recommend checking out the winery if you visit the Biltmore, and the Winery and Village are splendid, especially during the Christmas season, which happily started at the beginning of November, when we were there.

All in all, the Biltmore is somewhere we’d like to visit again in the spring, if only to see its lovely gardens and grounds blossoming, but also to see that lovely building again.