Daytrip from Knoxville: Asheville NC
As East Tennessee is within a short driving distance to Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Middle Tennessee, the sky’s the limit on one’s recreational and entertainment choices. In as little as an hour and a half, East Tennesseans can access some of the most creative cities and the most beautiful scenery in the United States. A particularly enjoyable destination is North Carolina’s Asheville located just 115 miles from Knoxville.
Listed by Frommer’s as a Top Ten Travel Destination for 2007, Asheville is a beautiful, friendly, and culturally interesting city with a population of about 70,000. Once a pioneering town, today Asheville is well-known for its fantastic restaurants (local favorites include The Laughing Seed, Salsa’s, and the Early Girl Eatery, among others), shopping (everything from local artwork to rare books), quaint bed & breakfast inns, and numerous historic sites, including the Biltmore House, the largest privately owned home in the United States.
Designed by Richard Morris Hunt for George Vanderbilt in the late 1800s, the Biltmore House’s four acres of floor space contains more than 250 rooms, 65 fireplaces, a swimming pool, countless pieces of art and antiques, and even a bowling alley! The Biltmore Estate spans 8,000 acres offering visitors beautiful gardens designed by Fredrick Law Olmstead; a winery that hosts behind-the-scene tours and wine tastings; a number of top notch restaurants; biking, hiking, fishing, and other outdoor activities; and a luxury inn.
Speaking of inns, The Grove Park Inn is another must-see for Asheville visitors. Opening in 1913, The Grove Park Inn has hosted such famous guests as F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Harry Houdini, Will Rogers, George Gershwin, Thomas Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt and Henry Ford. Not to mention eight presidents — from Woodrow Wilson to George Bush.” Whether or not you book a room, The Grove Park offers fine dining in several restaurants; spa treatments for men and women; a number of lounges; and a golf course that “Golfweek magazine included in its 2005 “America’s Best” listings and Golf Digest named in 2004 as “one of the ten best courses in the United States that is 100 years old or more.”
Asheville is such a wonderful and exciting destination, it’s no wonder that AmericanStyle named it second out of America’s Top 25 Small Town Arts Destinations in 2006, while MSNBC named Asheville second of Top 10 Easy Spring Weekend Getaways in 2007 and Outside Magazine promises that Asheville is the Best Southern Town (2007). For more Asheville area rankings visit Asheville’s Chamber of Commerce.
