Day 5 brings us to the Biltmore Estate (http://www.biltmore.com/) - the largest home ever built in the US! An unbelievable 175,000 sq ft (and yes I said 175,000!) home on 8,000 acres (originally 125,000 acres) and still privately owned by the descendants of the original owner, George Washington Vanderbilt. When we arrived at the Estate, we were greeted by a gentleman who talked to us about the home and took our picture in front of it. Before leaving area and walking down toward the home, I asked him if he worked there, his name and if we could take his picture. He said his wife 'worked' there, his name was Cecil and why would we want to take his picture? We convinced him we did want to take his picture and later found out, via the audio tour we took and subsequent research we did, that Cecil is the name of the descendants that are the current owners of the estate. Wow! Once we'd put 2 + 2 together and did a little research via the internet, we realized that we were probably talking to John Francis Amherst Cecil, the great-grandson of George. The tour of the house was totally beyond amazing, totally beyond anything I could've ever imagined in my most vivid dreams. It took us 3+ hours to get thru the 250 room house. Among other things, it has original art from masters such as Renoir, magnificent 16th-century tapestries, Napoleon's chess set, a library with 10,000 volumes, a Banquet Hall with a 70-foot ceiling, 65 fireplaces, an indoor pool, bowling alley, and priceless antiques. The house opened to friends on Christmas Eve 1895 and this French Renaissance chateáu remains America's largest privately owned home. After taking the tour of the house itself, we wandered out to what were once the horse stables and ate at the Stable Cafe (even as horse stables this must have been a fabulous place to be as a horse!). Lunch was, as you might guess, a little pricey and not as wonderful as one would expect, but filling nevertheless. After lunch, we wandered into a couple of the several gift shops and purchased a sufficient $$ amount of soveneirs before leaving and driving over to 'America's Most Visited Winery' (our ticket provided us with a 'free' wine tasting). We tasted several and purchased one - the Century - a Biltmore Estate white table wine - the best of the ones we tried we thought and later made a delicious chicken dinner w/some of it (Rachael Ray says you should only cook with wine that you would drink ;-).
Today we've decided to venture into Asheville and take the Asheville Trolley Tour (http://www.ashevilletrolleytours.com/) - a 90 minute narrated tour aboard a trolley that travels through historic 
Asheville. Because it was raining throughout much of the tour, we were able to take only a few pictures. The trolley wasn't exactly a 'real' 
trolley like we'd hoped but more of a shuttle type bus used for touring the city. We did learn alot about Asheville, including additional history about the Biltmore, famous people who'd lived in and visited the city, movies that had been filmed there, historic buildings, etc) 
but were more than a little disappointed overall because of the weather and the lack of being able to actually visit some of the places we were told about. After the tour we walked over to the McDonalds across the street from the Biltmore Estates - a totally different McDonalds to be sure because of it's unusually elegant interior (it and the Hardee's across the street had been rebuilt in order to make it more closely fit the ambiance of the Biltmore Estates). We didn't eat there but did stop to take pictures as we figured 'never again would we have the opportunity to be in a nicer McDonalds' than this one. After lunch, we visited Biltmore Village, the 'village' that George Vanderbilt purchased (formerly the town known as 'Best') near the time he was building his Estate and now known for it's eclectic collection of antique and gift shops.
