Image source: Merlina McGovern
I’ve just come back from a wonderful spring trip to Asheville, North Carolina. It was my first trip there, and I instantly fell in love with this welcoming, art-filled city.
My husband and I have never been about buying things. We’ve always wanted to spend our money on experiences, and so we’ve spent most of our free time traveling. Pre-pandemic, we took wonderful trips to Hong Kong, Australia, Europe, and Africa. There was nothing we liked better than making new friends, exploring beautiful locations, and eating marvelous food.
But as we lost that ability to freely travel the world during COVID lockdowns, we hunkered down and daydreamed about what our next trips would be like. It was then that we thought about the fact that we hadn’t spent a ton of time traveling around our very own country. The US is such a large country with so many different vistas and cultures, we realized that we had been overlooking a wonderful travel bounty right in our own backyard.
Here are five of the delightful activities we were able to enjoy during our six-day trip to Asheville.
Strolling around Biltmore Village. This was our first stop where we initially set up camp. We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott here, which was clean and convenient to the village. We used points, so our stay was free, and the walk to the village was less then 10 minutes (though we appeared to be the only people to ever be walking on the sidewalks here). Biltmore Village is a planned village, with what its site proclaims as the fanciest McDonald’s (with a fireplace and a grand piano). The draw here for us was the wonderful art stores, including the New Morning Gallery (don’t forget to go upstairs for so many more works of art, including paintings, posters, furniture, and sculptures), and the delicious Corner Kitchen restaurant, which has the most flavorful shrimp and grits and which the Obamas visited in 2010.
Exploring the Biltmore Estate. This is a must-see attraction in Asheville. We only had to drive a few minutes to get to the estate from our hotel, but once we entered the estate, it took quite a while to drive to the house proper. This wasn’t surprising, given the fact that the Biltmore sits on 8,000 acres of land, with 75 acres of that land designed by the renowned architect, Frederick Law Olmstead, according to the Biltmore.com — and you could witness Olmstead’s genius with landscape design as you strolled through the grounds leading up to the home. Once inside, we took the audio tour, and marveled at the luxurious banquet halls, gorgeous atrium, and even a bowling alley and basement gym. My absolutely favorite room was the two-story library filled with thousands and thousands of books and dark, warm wood furniture. We definitely want to visit again, as we didn’t have time to explore the beautiful gardens (and maybe next time we’ll encounter some ghosts, given that many sites list it as an extremely haunted estate).
Image source: Merlina McGovern
Walking along the River Arts District and visiting Marquee. This was my favorite day by far. We drove first to Marquee, an enormous warehouse (50,000 square feet, in fact) full of paintings, sculptures, vintage photos, clothes, antiques, vinyl records, mugs, plaques of colorful birds, mosaics, photos of abandoned buildings, a Jolly Green Giant statue, furniture, and so much more. I loved just walking up and down the aisles and browsing the amazing explosions of color and textures. If you wanted, you could also grab some booze and snacks inside. We also walked along the river, visiting artists in their open studies, like Bethany Pierce, who does these gorgeous translucent acrylic paintings of delicate feathers and flower petals, and grabbing the most delicious ham croquettes at the Guajiro food truck. The mural in my opening picture is actually from West Asheville. Gorgeous murals are all over Asheville.
Eating at Asheville’s tasty restaurants. We’re unabashed foodies, and we weren’t really sure what to expect in this new-to-us town. But we were so pleasantly surprised by the scrumptiousness of the food we ate. I wrote about Neng Jr’s in a previous blog post. This Filipino restaurant was the best food we had, and I’m still blown away remembering it. Tangy, spicy, savory, so delicious, though the reservations were quite hard to come by, given the small dining room. In addition to food trucks and southern food, we also ate at Curate, a fun Spanish tapas bar, where the wait staff was friendly and helpful, and the jamon was silky smooth and so tasty. The grilled ramps were perfectly charred and a yummy taste of the season. The gambas dish (shrimp) was heavenly — garlicky, savory, and a slight hint of ginger. We washed everything down with 8-dollar glasses of Txakoli (which, while still tasty, was not poured from a very tall height as is traditional). One night, we partook of roof-top cocktails at Capella on 9 at the top of the AC hotel. The G&Ts were stiff, and the views were gorgeous. We only scratched the culinary surface with our initial visit, and I can’t wait to visit more restaurants in our next visit.
Image source: Merlina McGovern
Hiking through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. After all that booze, food, and art, we decided to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Oconaluftee visitor center. Once there, we took a leisurely hike along the Oconaluftee river trail and soaked in the sounds of the rushing spring-fed river. (If you’re more adventurous, you could also take the famed Mountain-to-Sea trail across 1,175 miles.) The drive to the river wound its way through the beautiful Smoky Mountains, with multiple places to turn off and admire the amazing views. Sadly, we did not get to see any elk or black bears, though many, many signs warned us of what to do if we did see any of these magnificent creatures.
Image source: Merlina McGovern
As a special note, we stayed at the Windsor Boutique Hotel in downtown Asheville. This was an absolutely gorgeous hotel, with suites that have full kitchens and living areas. The hotel has undergone a recent extensive renovation, and the interior design, with dark wood floors and exposed brick was just stunning. The staff was super friendly, and the hotel was centrally located to many of the restaurants and attractions I mentioned above.
I instantly fell in love with Asheville the minute we landed. This was a wonderful start to our goal of traveling more through the great beauties that the US has to offer us — I can’t wait to visit more!
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