grandeur: noun

The quality or condition of being grand; magnificence

a trip to Biltmore Estate

We started out the day eating at what use to be the stables of the estate. Even the booths looked liked stables, don't they?

 And the decadence began with a Chocolate Covered Cherry, a hot chocolate drink laced with amaretto and bailey's...YUM! I had 2...but I do have a cold and don't they say that a hot toddy is good for a cold? lol Well, that was my excuse and I am sticking to it!

Then a chicken salad topped with dried cranberries and toasted pumpkin seeds...oh it was delicious!! Fortified, we went off on our tours! We signed up for 2 of them, the first one was called the Butler's Tour, which took us through all the back passage ways in the house that only the servants used. The picture on the right shows and over view of the back kitchen and only accessed by the staff. To get this picture we are standing on this outside 'deck', which connected the main house to the servants quarters and we are on our way to Ms. Kings rooms, she was the housekeeper who ran the estate! You should have seen some of the cleaning equipment....yuck....glad for my Hoover, all I have to say! I wish I could have taken pictures of the inside of the estate but they don't allow that :( The next tour was some of the rooms on the 3rd floor that held the guest rooms, I loved looking at the shoes and clothing from that time....don't want to wear them, but loved looking at them!

We drove around the land afterwards and got this gorgeous view of the estate behind one of the lakes. And this gorgeous Mallard, who clearly wanted something to eat and we had to disappoint him but I did promise to bring something out for him the next trip!

...and these road hogs who had a line of cars waiting for them to get out of the way, but they were in no hurry and were quite content keeping everyone under the speed limit!

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