Destination Biltmore Estate Asheville: A Southern Royalty
Get to know Biltmore Estate. Here are the places to check out within the property.
When my girlfriends Jovy, Fritchie, and Boniffer, said they were coming to visit the Carolinas, one of the places I had in mind for us to check was the Biltmore Estate. I’ve been to the Biltmore Estate a few times, and it’s always a delightful visit whenever I go. Anyhow, the girls truly enjoyed it. It was a fun vacation to remember for a lifetime with good friends.
The Biltmore Estate, created by George Vanderbilt, is an 8,000 acre full of stunning estate grounds. They call it the Biltmore House, but it’s truly more like a castle. Its history, and rich architectures inspired by French Renaissance castle takes you back to a very scenic wonderland while feeling like royalty. The Biltmore House has 250 rooms, and 75 acres of beautiful gardens. The property also has its own winery, shops, restaurants, hiking trails, and a lot more.
Where We Stayed:
HOTEL: THE INN ON BILTMORE ESTATE, a verified luxury resort offering spacious, and even recently renovated rooms and suites that have a formal, stylish and elegant furnishings. The resort ambience is casually elegant, but not overly formal.
RATES: Anywhere from $299 to $1250 per night depending on the room type
TIP: When booking, request a room with a view at the back of the property and on higher floors to get that scenic view of the estate. Also, book in advance. Biltmore Estate can be busy all-year round!
The Biltmore House Tour
This is a self-guided tour. I recommend that you get the audio to learn its history, and the Vanderbilt family as you walk down the different rooms and spaces within the mansion. You’ll see antiques and collection of arts original to the Vanderbilt home, and a lot of elegant furnishings.
The Gardens
Take a scenic stroll in the gardens. All of these gardens, about 75 acres, are all designed by America’s foremost landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted. They are all beautiful. Lots of different things to see – from water lilies, papyrus, ornamental shrubs, tulips, to fifty varieties of roses
Italian Garden makes you feel like you’re somewhere in France.
Shrub Garden offers a picturesque landscape with hundreds of ornamental shrubs and trees. There are scattered benches for relaxing and photo ops.
Walled Garden features a lot of seasonal blooms, from summer annuals to fall mums. They call this the walled garden because of the different themed areas with borders, one of which is Victorian border.
Rose Garden offers you all the different varieties of roses, all 50 of them excluding All-American roses.
The Conservatory houses a large collection of palms, ferns, orchids, and lots of tropical blooms.
Azalea Garden
Antler Hill Village & Winery
Dining, shopping and wine-tasting are the heart of Antler Hill Village. They offer complimentary wine tasting. The girls and I enjoyed tasting some bites, reds and rosés. My favorite so far was the Biltmore Estate Limited Release Chenin Blanc. It has that balanced fruit taste and floral aromas and citrus flavor, with just the perfect sweetness for me.
We did some shopping and dined at the Village Social, a nice, casual restaurant offering seafood dishes that are prepared in traditional southern style with local ingredients. Yum.
Here’s a list of restaurants in Antler Hill Village:
Cedric’s Tavern
Bistro
Village Social
Library Lounge
The Dining Room at The Inn at Biltmore
The Creamery
The Smokehouse
Restaurants or cafe’s outside of the Antler Hill Village but within the Estate:
Stable Café
The Bake Shop
The Courtyard Market
Ice Cream Parlor
Photo Spots and Other Outdoor Activities
Lastly, I’ll recommend for you to take as much scenic strolling as you can, everywhere in the property. The estate is beautiful in almost every angle offering you limitless spots for a perfect photo op.
Aside from the house and the gardens, there are several great hiking trails and greenway. They also offer segway tours, horse carriage rides, paddle board river tour, and fly-fishing. They also have what they call a Land Rover experience where they take you off-road in remote areas of the estate to navigate through water, ruts, steep hills in a brand new Range Rover. We haven’t done this yet, but I would imagine we’ll want to do it one of these days, ha!
Estate Events
The Biltmore Estate can be busy all-year round. They have different events going on during different seasons: garden sculptures, fall festivities, Christmas at Biltmore for the holidays, etc. I would recommend you check out their website for any events they may have on their calendar.
If you’re thinking of visiting North Carolina one of these days, I’d recommend visiting The Biltmore Estate in Asheville. The tour can be pricey. I would recommend booking your tickets in advance. It is worth every penny though, for a truly beautiful country retreat.
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Hi, I'm Shar! I started the outbounder as a place to share my adventures as I explore different places around the world, my love for different kinds of food, and a passion to capture a moment in time through photography.
