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| Albemarle Inn's side yard ~ pic from their website |
I'd never been to Asheville, NC but I'd heard a lot of great things about it from coworkers and from our local newspapers which seem to compare Roanoke and Asheville often. My man and I were curious about what this Roanoke-y type city in the Smokey Mountains was like so we spent four days there in late July as part of our honeymoon.
First things first ~ where to stay?! My man booked a room at the gorgeous Albemarle Inn Bed and Breakfast after he searched the internet for romantic places in Asheville. We loved it! Mainly because it is in a quiet neighborhood that is close to everything you'd want to see in Asheville, it's clean, serves awesome multi-course breakfasts, and has cute rooms. We were given the Vanity Fair room on the second floor which has a claw foot tub/shower, gas fireplace, and four poster bed. I worried that we would hear our neighbors but we never did.
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| Vanity Fair room ~ pic from their website |
For some reason, some papers compare Roanoke to Asheville a lot and I didn't see why. Aside from the scenery (mountains), they aren't very similar in my opinion. Asheville has a very large and vibrant arts community that is the heart of the city. From the pottery studios in the River Arts District part of town to the renovated art supermarket-y Woolworth Building where you can find tons and tons of artist booths any day of the week, to the galleries and Arcade full of art and professional artisans, Asheville makes room for its artists and showcases them. Roanoke has a lot of lovely gallery space downtown but Asheville seems to purposely give its professional artists a lot more space and more of a central role. I also thought that Asheville seemed more hippy-ish and left-leaning than Roanoke is and that is a major difference when you are comparing two cities to one another.
When you read the local Roanoke paper, The Roanoke Times, you'll read discussions from time to time about how some residents would like to see higher end retailers come to town. You'll hear this sort of tone from people like me who don't like having to drive three hours to visit White House Black Market, IKEA, The Cheesecake Factory, and Anthropologie. Other residents will say that Roanoke doesn't have enough wealthy residents to support that kind of retailer and that we just have to accept that fact. Roanoke has a lot of Dollar Trees. When I was in Asheville, I saw those higher end retailers which surprised me because Roanoke has more people according to the census than Asheville does. Does that mean their residents are richer or is it just the perception of the marketers that they have more money? I wondered that quite a bit. Not that I'm materialistic but I AM a girl.
I think the favorite place that I ate while we were down there was Early Girl Eatery on Wall Street. Their breakfast food, especially biscuits with jam, is delicious. Little Pigs Bar-B-Q for dinner was really good too but it wasn't the 'WOW!!!!' I wanted from a N.C. bar-b-q place. Good but not OMG good. I think my expectations for NC bar-b-q are probably too high based on The Food Network's propaganda. My man really enjoyed his food there, though. I should have ordered their lemon pie but I didn't want to be a fatty. LOL
Of course, we visited The Biltmore Estate. It was jaw-dropping and amazing and made me think of Downton Abbey a bunch of times but boy was it expensive! Over $150 for two people to do a self-guided audio tour!!! Was it worth it? Yes. I have to say, I feel better knowing that we used some Visa and MasterCard gift card funds that we had as wedding gifts to help lessen the blow to our wallets. I've heard people say it is gorgeous all decorated for Christmas but I would have loved to see it in late spring when all the flowers + azaleas were in bloom. Their gardens are neat.
My favorite place we saw, aside from The Biltmore, was a pottery gallery in the River Arts District. The artists are soooooo talented and it's nice that there is a centralized place to go to check out the artists while they work.
When we got home, my man's laundry smelled a bit like patchouli which shocked us both since we don't go for that kind of thing.
I really enjoyed visiting Asheville but I bet their property tax rates are high. It seemed much more expensive to live there than it is to live in Roanoke which is the whole reason I moved to SW VA to begin with. If high end stores were more important to me than a home, I'd still be living in NY. I wonder if some of Asheville's emphasis on the arts and shopping will bleed over to Roanoke or not? Would Roanoke change and be too expensive to live in? Would it lean more to the left than it does now? I don't think those changes will come. I just think our two cities are way too different but what do I know... I'm a newbie! :-)
