Windy City, Smoky Mountains ~ Day 9 - Biltmore

[wickesy]

On the agenda today was a visit to Biltmore followed by the Tom Jones concert at 8:00pm. We were up and out by 8:45 and the sat-nav took us a rather ‘interesting’ route through some back lanes in ‘Hill-billy’ country, and had to re-route us at one point when I refused to go down what looked like a gravel track.

We got to Biltmore at around 10:30 and when we presented our tickets at the gate we were greeted with “Y’all have been made aware the concert is cancelled?”. Of course we hadn’t (although at the time of typing this I’m expecting to find an e-mail when I get home) but it was no great problem as we had intended visiting Biltmore anyway and we were told that Guest Services would be able to confirm what was happening about a refund. We carried on up the drive, parked up and made our way up to the house.

Biltmore House is a 250 room mansion built for George Vanderbilt and opened by him on Christmas Eve 1895. It stands amongst 125,000 acres of forest, a 250 acre wooded park and five pleasure gardens and over the years he invited many friends and family to stay with him there, often for weeks at a time. In 1960 the house was opened to the public and today is a major tourist attraction.

We began with a self-guided tour of the house and, whilst impressive, it has to be said that it is very similar, at least to us, as many stately homes in England.




This is the view from the balcony outside the Tapestry Gallery where guests relaxed after their meals.

Once we finished our tour we went into the bakery where Dad had a Muffaletta sandwich (ham, proscuttio and other stuff) while I had a ham and Swiss cheese stuffed croissant and we had a coke each. After lunch we went into the gift shop where we bought a fridge magnet, DVD, polo shirt, Christmas ornament and colour guide book. From there we stopped off at Guest Services who confirmed that everybody had been automatically refunded for the cost of the concert and, as far as possible, they had tried to notify everybody of the cancellation, which was apparently because of a problem with Tom Jones’ vocal cords.

We then went to have a look at the photo of us that had been taken as we entered the house and although we don’t normally buy this sort of thing I liked the look of the background and the frame so we bought it at a cost of $26.95.




I then took a couple of photos of where the concert would have been taking place - how’s this for a venue?




We then moved on to walk through some of the gardens




And down to the bass pond



This was a bit further out than we realised so we walked back as far as the shuttle bus stop and got the shuttle back to the main house so I could get a picture



Before walking back to the car. We moved off at 2:00 and it was around 2:25 before we reached the main gate! The main reason for this is that you have to drive round most of the estate to get out because a lot of it is one-way traffic.

Continued

[wickesy]

As we were in no rush to get anywhere I reverted to Plan A, which was to drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway to get back to Gatlinburg. This is supposedly one of the most scenic drives in America and although it more than doubled the journey time it was worth it because to quote a line from one of my favourite films: “You don’t see nothing’ on Interstate but Interstate”. I resisted the temptation to stop off at all of the overlooks on the way back, but we did stop off at a few.














Continued

[wickesy]

Sorry for all the photos but I couldn’t decide which ones to cut

At the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway we joined Newfound Gap Road, which we had travelled a few days previously when we went to Cherokee and shortly before reaching Gatlinburg we reached 1,000 miles added to the car’s mileage since we picked it up.




Back in Gatlinburg we parked up at the top end of town as we wanted to take in ‘Tunes & Tales’ which is a street event sponsored by the city of Gatlinburg and involves various entertainers along the main street performing and telling tales. As we walked down we stopped off to watch a couple of young dancers and when they finished we went down to McDonalds to get something to eat. As we went to sit down we noticed that the dancers had come in behind us, obviously a popular spot to have a break.

We then carried on walking down one side of the street looking for a shop that sold wooden carvings that we had spotted the other day but we obviously missed it so we crossed over and walked back up the other side. As we walked up we heard a couple of musicians playing Dulcimers (a mountain instrument kind of like a guitar but played flat) so we stopped to listen to them and then made our way back to the car.

We were back in the cabin for 8:00 where spent a couple of hours relaxing before going to bed at the usual time with no firm plans for tomorrow.

P.S. When we got home I did have both an e-mail and a letter telling us the concert had been cancelled because Tom Jones had problems with his vocal cords brought on by bronchitis. We got a full refund of not only the cost of concert but also admission to the estate meaning we saved $94 on the day as we were going to visit before I even knew about the concert.

Day 10

[Strommie]

Lovely day, pity the concert was cancelled though.

[TrueBlue]

Another really nice day for you and your dad David. Some really beautiful scenery.

What a pity the Tom Jones concert was cancelled, at least you got a full refund though

[Guest]

Another great report with lovely photos.

Shame that the concert was cancelled.

[DisneyMadAng]

Lovely photos. I'm glad you didn't leave any out.

What a shame about the concert. It was really very good of them to refund the entrance fee too.

[Guest]

Biltmore House looks stunning, shame your concert was cancelled though.

[orlandosgr8]

A shame about the concert, but it looks like you had a lovely scenic drive back.

[DIBBadmin]

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