Outside the Biltmore

The Biltmore is as stunning OUTSIDE as it is INSIDE. So here's a sampling (and only a sampling...you're welcome) of our outdoor tour.

We ate lunch there on the grounds. Just outside the house was the carriage house area...renovated into gift shops and an eatery. We ate at the Courtyard Market which is hiding behind that palm tree looking thing.

We opted to share a pizza (we got the half-serving and it was PLENTY enough) - kind of a chicken florentine sort of thing. We ate outside, and the weather was just perfect!!

Okay you all know I'm a dork, so this picture won't surprise you. :) Found me a man:

He's quiet and sits very still. :) And apparently I wouldn't have to spend much time doing laundry!

When we were done eating and looking around the area immediately outside the house, we ventured over into the gardens. BEAUTIFUL rose gardens...even though rose season is largely over:

This was the hot house. Had my picture taken with the sign in honor of my broken internal thermostat, which makes EVERY house a hot house for this girl. (The thermometer in here registered 105. Yep. That's hot.)

Always take time to stop and smell the roses.

We stopped to get a bottle of water, because it was REALLY hot outside. THREE DOLLARS AND TWENTY ONE CENTS FOR THAT BOTTLE OF WATER. Did I keep it? As my mother would say, you bet your sweet bippy!! (No idea what a bippy is or why in the world someone would bet it.)

This little creek wandered all through the gardens and finally I could stand it no more. I had to get my toes wet. :)

Gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. (Talking about the scenery, not me. HELLO!)

Loved this bridge. And reflecting pictures. Love those too.

Lynnette standing on this really weird "bridge." It was just two stones sticking up even with the path. No room for error on that one!!

Some really nice guy took our picture in front of this waterfall. It was at this point that the thunder rumbling in the distance was becoming louder and more frequent, so we hurried back to the house after this one!

We paused to take the outside pictures at the house (that you already saw) and then caught the shuttle back to the parking lot. It was SO HOT - and I was desperate for air conditioning. When we got back to Sammy, we just sat there for a while with the air blasting full force. Our faces had completely slid off and our hair had wilted. Good thing we have been friends for a long time and are not offended by that sort of thing.

Biltmore, Baby!

Lynnette and I declared Friday our Biltmore day. We got up early (read: before noon) and headed to "the big castle." Lynnette had done her research well (this really WAS a vacation for me...she even did the research!) and knew the place wasn't air conditioned. Have mercy. She figured if we went early in the day, we would avoid the bulk of the crowds and the worst of the heat.

GOOD THINKING. This is why we're friends. She's a smart one.

So we drove to the Biltmore and bought our tickets which granted us access to the grounds for the day. We parked Sammy and caught a shuttle over to the house. (We weren't lazy. We were WISE. We did a LOT of walking that day.) This is Lynnette (and Aslan) before we began our tour of the house. 

Real quick factoids for ya, just in case you're not familiar with the Biltmore: it has four acres of floor space, 250 rooms 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces. PRAISE THE LORD I'm not preparing THAT house to show.

Anyway. All that to say, this house tour goes a LITTLE longer than than a real estate showing. Lynnette and I bought the audio tour on the good advice of her mother-in-law, and it turned out to be a great decision. The audio tour lets you rent little mp3 players with headphones and as you walk through each room (each ALLOWED room - you don't go to all 250) you enter the number and the narrator gives you some information about what you're seeing and what it signifies. We were able to go at our own pace without keeping up with a tour guide. That was fun.

There aren't any pictures allowed inside the house, so...you're spared! :)

We did get to take pictures on this little porch on the back side of the house. It was off the tapestry gallery, you know. (What? You don't have a porch off YOUR tapestry gallery???)

We were going to ask this lady on the porch to take our picture but she went into a 35 sneeze fit right about then and we thought perhaps we'd just self-photograph. Turned out to be my favorite picture of the whole trip! 

It took about 2 hours to get through our tour, and by the end of it, the crowds had REALLY picked up, and so had the HEAT! So we were glad to be back outside to enjoy sun and breeze for a bit!

My favorite room? Well since you asked...it was the swimming pool. Per the handy dandy guide book, "The 70,000 gallon indoor pool was heated and still has its original underwater lighting. Swimmers could push call buttons, located on the wall near the doors, to order refreshments or to signal they were ready to leave and needed help changing." I would consider that room a luxury in a house NOW. To think they did that in the 1890's...blew my mind.

We did find a nice lady who took our picture outside...this isn't the front. Just over to the side. (Reminded me a lot of "over to the side" outside my own house.) 

The back of the house. (And some wind. Good night nurse.) Right behind  my left shoulder is the porch where we'd had the other pictures taken earlier.

We walked the gardens (more on that another day) and then came back...and by that, I mean RUSHED...to take pictures of the outside of the house before the storm rumbling in the distance showed up. We weren't far ahead of it. Whew!!

Anyway. My official photo with the Biltmore.

 And Lynnette's official photo with the Biltmore.

If you look left of Lynnette in the picture above, you'll see a couple of people walking away from the shuttle and toward us. They were this darling couple who flagged us down and asked us if we'd take their picture. We said no. I'm KIDDING!

We took their picture and then they asked if we'd like them to take ours! Well sure!!!! So they did:

 And then they held hands and walked away...and I heard the girl say "Hey let's run!" so they took off running hand in hand. Like I said. DARLING.

And one more view...for the road!!!!

We took these pictures while dodging some sort of photo shoot involving two 16ish age girls, a LOT of curls and hairspray, lethally high heels, and honest-to-goodness hoop skirts. (And did I mention it was almost a billion degrees outside with equal humidity?)