We just spent the past week in Asheville NC. (May 11-18th).

We stayed at Willow Winds. A cottage complex in the woods. A great place to stay. Check out reviews at www.tripadvisor.com or at their web site at www.willowwinds.com.

Other choices would have been motels or b& b’s.

We visited the following:

Biltmore house and gardens. Can spend a lot of time there. We spent most of our time in the gardens and on the trails. Less in the house. (Personal preference). Very pretty place. Also went to the winery for a tasting. Fun. No pressure to buy. That is handled in another room.

Had lunch at the restaurant next to the house- excellent.

Also visited Chimney Rock. About 20 miles south on a twisty windy road. Good views.

Drove south on the blue ridge parkway as far a Pisgah mountain. Nice views on the blue ridge as you get away from Asheville - where there aren’t any views. Just forest. Also a nice place to eat there, but we had already had lunch.

Drove north on the blue ridge parkway up as far as craggy gardens. (They bloom in June). Higher elevation. More dramatic views. Stopped at the folk art center which is just a few miles out of Asheville on this hwy. Well worth a stop.

Took a trolley tour of Asheville. Highly recommend it.

Visited Thomas Wolfe house in Asheville.. Took tour of house and watched video. Informative.

Spent time in downtown Asheville at all the interesting craft shops. Also discovered the Chocolate Fetish shop. Outstanding chocolate!. Especially the truffles.

Visited the North Carolina Arboretum designed by Olmstead. Beautiful, well worth a stop. Also took a walk at the botanical gardens at the university of North Carolina.. If you have time only for one the NCA one is our preferred choice.

Visited Biltmore Village - a shopping area. Ok. Some nice stores, some standard expensive chain stores.

Went Birding 2 mornings at Beaver Lake - north of town - an Audubon Sanctuary. Nice walk even if you don’t bird. Saw a fair amount of birds. Warblers, baby ducks. Green herons, redstarts. Etc. Etc.

Lots more to see and do if you want to.


Restaurants in addition to those mentioned above:

Carmels. - in downtown Asheville for lunch - good.
Flat Rock Grill - on Rt 25. Good for dinner - a bit noisy.
Province - same Rt. Husbands meal was fine, I had shrimp. They were starting to go bad, should of sent back, didn’t. Rest of meal was fine.
Corner Kitchen in Biltmore village - late breakfast- was great.
Atlantic bread company and Panera for some lunches.

Earth Fare - a natural food grocery. Excellent, excellent salad bar, deli, etc. ate several meals there or took out.

Spent some time relaxing and reading at Willow Winds. All in all a good trip

Follow up: The area had a terrible frost in early April, which inpacted many of the new growth on the trees and some blooms like the tulips and dogwood trees. But except for the trees which will recover in due time, Current flowers and bushes(May) are blooming.

Also will post a link to some pics in a few weeks when I get them up.

Nice report, Joanel Asheville is a nice town and well worth a visit. Our last trip there was in December, and even that was fun, although you went at the best time of year, IMO.

We 2 couples were just in Asheville and stayed at a B&B. It was good, but Willow Winds looks sensational. A 2BR, 2BA cottage would have been perfect for us. How did you find out about the cottages? Are you going to write a report for Tripadvisor?

many positive reports on trip advisor already. agree with them all.

the web site of willow winds is quite accurate.

not sure if we found out through trip advisor or the booklet asheville sends out in the mail or has on-line about the area and places to stay.

we first looked at another rural inn, forget name, but was in the mountains, and not separate cottages and fairly far from asheville.

Thanks for your report Joanel, I hope to visit Asheville someday.

Thanks for your report. Very informative.

Thanks for the report. We'd like to check out Asheville someday.

Our pictures are up if you are interested.
http://www.pbase.com/joanel/ashevile

Beautiful pictures, thanks.

Joanel -- Balsam Mountain Inn, perhaps? I only heard of it last year. Looks like a neat place to stay. http://www.balsammountaininn.com/

I'm glad you mentioned Beaver Lake. I drive past it a lot and think, that would be a good spot for bird watching!

Very helpful trip report!!!