Norton travels, USA and beyond: North Carolina and Biltmore Estate

Saturday we made it to my sister Nancy’s house in Raleigh, NC., and are enjoying a nice visit with them. We drove to Asheville on Monday, about a four hour drive into the Appalachian Mountains. On Tuesday we spent the day at the Biltmore Estate, the largest privately owned house in the US. Built in the late 1800’s, it is almost 180,000 square feet and 250 rooms in size. It is a beautiful, impressive mansion built with money from the Vanderbilt fortune. We ate in the Stable Restaurant, so named because it occupies the former stable building along with several shops. Then we walked around the gardens (although they are not in bloom yet) and greenhouse and drove to the part of the estate that now is a winery and shops. Unfortunately, no photos are allowed inside the main house, so I only have pictures of the other areas. On our way back to Raleigh, we stopped in Winston-Salem to walk through Old Salem. This historic district has a combination of original and restored buildings. The community was founded in the 1750s by the Moravians, a Protestant sect from Eastern Europe. Nancy and I also toured the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, which has furniture, textiles, ceramics and silver from the region going back to pre-revolutionary days. A local Southern lady guided us through the rooms to explain the history of the items on display. It was a uniquely interesting museum.

Today Nancy and I worked on some family history using familysearch.org. Tomorrow we plan on going to the Raleigh Art Museum, then on Monday we’re off to Williamsburg, Virginia. We continue to have below normal temperatures; I hope that situation improves soon so we can keep heading north.