The Biltmore House

The Biltmore House

The Fantastic View of the Mountains

The Green House

and there were Stag Horns!

and orchids

beautiful orchids in every color

Looking out into the Rose Garden

Beautiful smelling roses.....

Hundreds and hundreds of roses!

Melanie and I decided since we were only 1 1/2 hours from Asheville, we should take a day and go see the Biltmore Estates.  When were we ever going to be that close again?  ....maybe never and neither one of us had ever been.  So, we set out early one morning and headed towards Ashevile.  It really wasn't a bad drive once we figured out where we were going.  The directions from the GPS took us right to the Biltmore Estates.  The first shock we had was the price of admission.  You would have thought we were at Disney World for the day.  It was $63 per person and another $10 for the audio tour thingy. ...which you needed if you wanted to know anything about the house.  That's right! $73 to walk around 50 of the 250 rooms. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the house.  You could buy post cards of some of the rooms.   You did get to walk around the gardens, green house, shop in a very small village and go to a wine tasting.  Still...$73??...seriously?   We weren't sorry we went though.  It was fun leaning about the house and the Vanderbilts.  It must have been really something to live in such a house of huge rooms, hunky furniture, silk and leather walls.  There was an indoor swimming pool, a two lane bowling alley and a gym.  I sure wish we could have seen the other 200 rooms.  My favorite room was the library.  It had over ten thousand books in it.  I know!  How could you ever read them all?   The Vanderbilts entertained a lot to get use out of such a big house seeings how there were only the three of them living there.  George Vanderbilt, his wife Edith and they had a daughter, Cornelia.   At the end of the day, we were really glad we took the time to go see it all and learn a part of history we other wise wouldn't have.