day 6: 5/31

Today was the last day of the tour. We had a short ride to the Biltmore House where we took a walk around the grounds and a self-guided audio tour of the inside the main building.

The Biltmore Estate was built by George Venderbilt and was opened in 1895. It is an enormous set of buildings and grounds and is still a private business, staffed by 2400 employees. The house is 175,000 square feet on 8000 acres. The land was cleared and landscaping designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.

https://www.biltmore.com/blog/article/10-fast-fact-about-biltmore

Here is a view of the front.

Here are Mike and Walter walking toward the front with the huge grass lawn from the previous picture to the left of the trees.

Here's the view away from the building. This ramp was so that horses and carts could get up to this area where they staged hunts. Note the steps in the middle of the ramp for wheels.

To the right of the Biltmore House was the garden. The walkway was shaded by plants growing on the trellis.

At the end of the walkway through the garden was the greenhouse. While the greenery was pretty amazing, I was intrigued by the model trains that ran throughout the greenhouse. The attendance said that everything in the greenhouse was built with the same materials used by the life-size models.

After lunch, we had some time to kill. I thought it might be nice to go into Asheville and look around. I also considered going back to the Biltmore to see what I had missed. Apparently, I missed the best parts by listening to each segment of the audio tour in its entirety. The others did "speed touring" and got through more of the building including the basement where there was a pool (that leaked), a bowling alley and a prehistoric gym.

 

After the ride, we packed up and went to lunch. Lunch was in another part of the campus and we didn't feel like walking anymore even though it wasn't THAT far, so to and from the restaurant, we rode in this:

Since we didn't have the time or energy to go into Asheville (we would have to come back to get our luggage) or go back to the Biltmore, or just about anything else, here is what we ended up doing.

Today's stats: https://www.strava.com/activities/2411860249

Totals for the week:
162.4 miles
13,917' of climbing
although 1.57 miles and 203' of climbing were on the e-bike!

Another successful bike trip.