I had located two chocolate shops in downtown Asheville and we made plans to visit both places. We started off with a visit to the French Broad Chocolate Lounge. For anyone who's been to Northampton, MA this reminded me of the Haymarket except...one better...it was chocolate themed. Oh yeah! Ted got a slice of probably the best chocolate cake I have ever tasted and I got a mug of pure dark hot chocolate. I could have easily sat there all afternoon with a book or the laptop and gained numerous pounds in the process, I had no idea there could be art to hot chocolate, so many flavors to try! And the chocolates...we picked up a small box to bring back to the hotel.
As I'm writing this post, I'm also looking at their website, for reference material of course, and I realize that we didn't even scratch the surface of goodies to sample from there. A repeat trip isn't in the cards right now, maybe an online order sometime soon???
Saturday morning we ventured over to Bilmore:
I'm still getting my brain around the place, all I can say is WOW. It is impossible to fathom having that much money, that much house and nothing to do but enjoy it all because everything else is being done for you. I realize that there are still people in the world who live like that (like, for example, George Vanderbilt's descendants who still own the place) but it is just so far from my frame of reality to really grasp.
We spent to whole morning at Biltmore but it could have easily been an entire day (or multiple days) if you included tours of the windery, exhibits at Antler Hill Village and other various activities available on the grounds. But for spending the morning hob nobbing with the rich (or rather all the other wanna bees touring the house) was just enough for us. We headed back to the hotel to grab a late lunch downtown and, you guessed it, check out chocolate shop number two!
Off to The Chocolate Fetish. This was much more of a traditional chocolate shop. We each sampled a chocolate before lunch and then I went back after to lunch to grab a few more goodies. I also picked up this mug:
In case you can't read it, it says "When coffee dreams, it dreams of chocolate." Obviously. I actually liked the chocolates from this shop better than the French Broad but I'm not sure if that rating is because I tried flavored truffles at the French Broad and a semi-sweet truffle and caramels at the Chocolate Fetish. Hard to give a good comparison when you didn't try the same thing right? What was I thinking?!? Oh well, next time! However I give French Broad Chocolates the mark for atmosphere, it was a much more cozy environment that made you want to sit and stay a while. I think any repeat visits will include a visit to both places, and possibly a THIRD place that we spied but didn't explore.
Besides the chocolate we also checked out a couple of REALLY tasty restaurants and saw many more that would be worth a taste as well. Unfortunately you can only eat so many times a day. There was also a visit to the Mast General Store and a quick walk through the Woolworth Walk, to check out the restored soda fountain. Wow, sounds jam packed but we STILL managed to fit in plenty of relaxation and quick dip in the pool! While it was a short trip, I came back completely refreshed.
It's amazing what uninterrupted reading, sleeping, computer, do whatever you want time can do for a Mom's sanity!
Still thinking about that chocolate...
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