The Biltmore House

Through a fortunate convergence of residency interviews and grandparents willing to keep our babies (THANK YOU!), Jonny and I found ourselves visiting the Carolinas last week.

I flew to Greenville, South Carolina to meet Jonathan (he had driven in from a previous stop earlier in the week). We spent a lovely evening walking around downtown Greenville together, eating dinner, and enjoying the city. Other cities should travel to Greenville to see what they've done with their downtown. It's really, really good.

Downtown, you can walk to a pedestrian bridge (below) over a falls, with a beautiful park surrounding the Reedy River. The bridge was built so the views of the falls would be unobstructed. Genius.

This photo is from the other side of that bridge.

Lattes sure taste good on a crisp morning with a view like that!

From Greenville, on our way to Winston-Salem, NC, we made the fairly quick and scenic drive into the Blue Ridge Mountains to Asheville, North Carolina. We didn't decide to stop at the Biltmore Estate until that very day, but I am SO glad we did. We had about four hours, and it was totally worth the price of admission (which ain't cheap).

The home of Richie Rich and "Morley Manor" on Private Eyes (so I'm told, we are going to watch that one this week).

It was truly incredible. (That muddy spot on the grass is where the Christmas trees just were. According to instagram geotagged photos, we just missed the Christmas decorations by four days! Dang it.)

I have always loved that staircase detail you can see from the outside. The architecture is really fascinating...such an enormous project, the scale is really not fathomable to me. Where would one even start? Unfortunately, the architect, Richard Morris Hunt, died before the house was completed.

I highly recommend the guided audio tour. You can't take any photos inside, but peruse this portion of their website if you're curious about it.

I was real glad that we've been watching Downton Abbey while touring this house. Since it was built around the turn of the 20th century, it's apples-to-apples with the Biltmore. Easy to imagine: "oh, there's where Carson would be standing," "oh, there's where Anna helps dress Lady Mary," etc. They even have calling cards still in the doors of some of the guest rooms. I wish we could've gone through every single room!

If you ever have a chance to go, DO IT!

 I hope we can go back someday and see all of the gardens in bloom. Though, mid-January is a nice time to visit if you want the place to yourself.

#SELFIE #YOLO #youknow

We had a sweet reunion with our chickies when we got home. Three nights is maybe my max to be away from them right now--I missed them so much (and pumping...eesh)!

YES though, every now and then, it's nice to get away with my guy. It's our favorite to visit new places.

We liked you, NC/SC!


p.s. Holla to my blog friend Laura, whom I got to meet while visiting her town (I know, I'm on a roll)! We got to grab some lunch, get our nails done, and make a Trader Joe's run. Girl time doesn't get more successful than that.