Asheville, Blue Ridge Parkway & Blowing Rock, North Carolina

Today was very overcast with the sun trying to come out.  The temperature was about 20⁰C.  We left at about 8am and as the shops only opened at 10am, we decided we would find somewhere later and have brunch.  We headed off to Asheville.  We found parking in the historic downtown area and caught the trolley bus to do a tour of the town.  It was very interesting and there is a lot of history to this town.  It was a lot cooler here and at one point along the tour even started to rain a bit. 

We left Asheville at about 12pm and got onto the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Oh wow, the views were amazing.  We got up to about 4700 feet.  There was just layers and layers of mountains and due to the weather being a bit misty we couldn’t see them that clearly.  We drove through to Crab Tree Falls to have lunch but when we got there were advised that the restaurant had closed down.  We were starving!!  In Doug’s words “after eating the last of the peanuts starvation stared us in the eyes”.  We had to drive another 30 minutes to get to Little Switzerland where at 2:30pm we found a restaurant for lunch.  

After lunch we headed off to Boone to find a place to stay.  There was nothing suitable there, so we continued on to Blowing Rock and found the Hillwinds Inn.  After checking in and getting warmer clothes on we took a walk up the hill to the main street.  Most of the shops were shut at 5pm.  After checking out the few that were open, Dereck and Doug found a tavern called “Glidewells Tavern” where they decided a drink was in order.  Sue and I carried on walking around and joined them a bit later.  We met the bartender  – Lindsay – who was most friendly and chatted to us the whole time we were there telling us a bit of history of the town.  We ended up having supper there – Doug and I had gumbo and Dereck and Sue had chicken fingers.  Most enjoyable.

We then headed off back to our Lodge, but on the way passed the “Six Pence Restaurant and Bar” and Dereck and Doug could not resist a visit.  They had a beer while Sue and I had hot chocolate.  We then walked back to our Lodge for a good night’s rest.

Michelle signing off ….