Asheville, NC - Day 2; Part 1

Day 2 of our Asheville adventure took us to The Biltmore Estate. The Biltmore Estate is a Châteauesque-style mansion built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895, and it is the largest privately owned house in the United States.

Doug, Bri and I grabbed some breakfast at the hotel restaurant before heading out ~ Briana thoroughly enjoyed her hot chocolate...

We had to purchased our tickets at the ticket office on property and then a shuttle took us to the main house.

The exterior was grand and beautiful...

We visited Biltmore on President's Day, so it was pretty crowded. But, it wasn't too terrible. Things moved along pretty good.

There was an unusual plant, sculpture thing greeting us when we came into the entrance hall...

We opted to do the audio tour. We walked around the estate with what looked like remote controls. Visitors punch in the number of the room they are standing in, put the device next to their ear (like a cell phone) and get interesting facts about that room. Bri got a kid version of the tour and really enjoyed it. I would definitely recommend it.

You can see the audio tour devices around our necks (our family photo :) )...

The first room we arrived at was the winter garden. So beautiful...

There was an exhibit throughout the house on the day we visited (it will stay for several months). The Designed for Drama exhibit showcases more than 40 award-winning movie costumes from films based on George Vanderbilt's favorite books in his collection. There were mannequins in every room wearing the costumes from these movies. I loved seeing the costumes, and I thought the mannequins really brought "life" to the rooms. I wish they had the exhibit there all the time...

The banquet hall was enormous and just breathtaking...

 It amazes me how much George Vanderbilt loved to read...

The breakfast room...

The salon...

The rhino picture on the bottom right (see below) has a neat story behind it...

Dürer's Rhinoceros 

The print was created in 1515...

Then we moved on to the music room...

The music room has a very interesting history. It is where paintings from the National Gallery were hidden/stored during WWlI...

Next up, the library. There are just no words to explain how amazing this room is...

George Vanderbilt had over 22,000 books in his collection...

A Chinese porcelain bowl from the Ming dynasty I believe...

The tapestry gallery...

The tapestries were so detailed and beautiful...

I think this is a good place to stop for this post. There were SO many rooms we went through - I'm going to be at this a while! The rooms I've blogged about so far are all on the first floor. So next up, the second floor - it is where all of the bedrooms are located. More to come...