Thursday morning Aliya and I headed off to the Biltmore Estate with my industry friend Rachel. The Biltmore is the largest single-family home in the US…it’s still family-owned even though it’s more like a museum and nobody lives in the house any more. It was originally built as a country retreat for George Vanderbilt and his wife, Edith, and later their only child, Cornelia. The house is 175,000 square feet, with 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces. Originally there were 125,000 acres of land…it currently sits on 8,000 acres. It is AMAZING…words really can’t describe how beautiful it is. They don’t allow photos to be taken inside the house, so I can’t even SHOW you how beautiful it is!
After our tour of the Biltmore, we had Mexican food for lunch at Neo Cantina, and went to the Western North Carolina Nature Center (another freebie with our Museum of Science membership). It was good for the kids to run around a bit and they got to see some less-common animals – African wild dogs, wolves, and they really liked the river otters swimming around against the glass. After a nap we went to downtown Asheville for dinner at the Mellow Mushroom, and walked around town a bit. It reminds me a lot of Cambridge Mass – lots of live music on the streets, artsy people hanging out, just a really great vibe.
