asheville weekend getaway

we made a quick little getaway for the long weekend to asheville! i have been wanting to go back to asheville for a while now (last time i went i think i was about seven and didn't appreciate it) and this weekend was the perfect time! with it being just a couple hour drive from knoxville, mom, daddy and phillip stayed at my place on friday night and then we loaded up and came to asheville saturday morning!

saturday we spent at the biltmore estate and biltmore village! can you say dream house? i am fascinated by the architecture and interior design of the home and life of the vanderbilts. so full of opulence and grandeur, can't even imagine calling that place home! before our audio guided tour (touristy i know, but definitely worth it), we ate at antler village (on the biltmore grounds) at cedric's tavern, which was delish! i ordered the charcuterie board (cheese, sausage, mustard, picked veggies and housemade bread) and it was so good. we all were quite full when we left!

after touring the estate, we drove over to biltmore village to shop around some and eat supper. unfortunately, most of the shops were closing by the time we got there, but there are some cute little boutiques as well as some stores such as j. crew and williams-sonoma to browse in. daddy and phillip walked over to two breweries, french broad and catawba, while mom and i shop! i think they certainly had a good time! for supper, we went the mexican route and chose cantina biltmore and all four of us were part of the clean plate club. i ordered the veggie quesadilla (definitely a cheat weekend) with grilled veggies and ate every last bite. their salsa and guacamole were great. i also tried mom and dad's side of cayenne-honey roasted brussel sprouts and they may have been the best brussel sprouts i have ever had. definitely something i would order again and that i want to learn to make at home! dessert was a sampling of cookies from well bred bakery and those were no disappointment either!

sunday was no day of rest. we started the day at lexington avenue brewery (delicious food and good beer apparently), went back over to the biltmore for the winery and wine tasting, then stayed downtown for the remainder of the day. while phillip and daddy went to as many breweries as they possibily could, mom and i treated ourselves to coffee, hot chocolate and sweet treats at the chocolate lounge. what better place to pass the afternoon than a chocolate lounge?! we walked around downtown some, watch some football at wicked weed brewery and then had supper at the highly-recommended restaurant, rhubarb. i think mom ordered the best with her goat cheese gnudi, but there wasn't one thing on the southern menu that didn't look good. southern living definitely didn't lie when they named rhubarb as one of the south's best restaurants. and since we were splurging, we ended the night with ice cream from ultimate ice cream, which was the ultimate treat!

since we all needed to get back to the real world, monday we just woke up and breakfasted at early girl eatery, another place we were told was delicious! it was the perfect way to wrap up the weekend! clearly, we ate our way and the boys sipped their way around asheville, but it couldn't have been a better quick january getaway! i love that the four of us are able to travel together and really enjoy each other even as we get older (i think we may have more fun now than when we were younger).

lucky for this old senior, i only have a three-day school week! i could get used to the holiday on monday and no class friday thing! i have got some barre3 workouts in the planner, as well as some blog posts floating around in my head, some homework i may need to do, work on friday and a soup and chili night planned for the coming weekend! have a lovely short work week y'all!

xoxo,
clp