We had two nights booked in Charlottesville which meant we had a full
day there to really get to like the place.

We had a superb breakfast at the Bluegrass Cafe which set us up for
our historic walking tour to take in sights like the photo below of
the court house.

We then enjoyed a milkshake and watched the world go by on the
pedestrianised mall. All of America’s best towns seem to understand
that people like to walk sometimes!

In the evening we had a delicious meal at Bel Rio watching a flamenco/
jazz trio which was a very welcome change to the chain restaurants.
Finally we went for a beer at Fellini’s #9 and watched a local rock/
bluegrass band make some drunk people do some very bad dancing 🙂

Charlottesville is up there with our favourite US towns and we can see
why everyone that lived there seemed to be smiling.

We left bizzare Gatlinburg yesterday morning and drove over the Smoky
Mountains (pic). It was so nice to feel the cool air at altitude.

On the otherside we stopped for lunch in Asheville which is a lovely
town in North Carolina with fantastic old art deco architecture.

From Asheville we drove straight onto Winston-Salem for the night.

As an aside, it is 2 weeks yesterday that we arrive back in London.
Weird!!

We arrived into Gatlinburg today on the edge of the Smoky Mountains to
find that it is one of the most touristy places on the planet. We knew
it was going to bad from Bill Bryson’s books we had read but nothing
prepared us for just how much there was. It has 8 Ripley’s based
attractions and endless dinner shows. Oh dear.

We did however manage to find the one great thing here: the local
micro-brewery and restaurant. Great beer and great food, so that made
it bearable. Tomorrow we will cross the Smokys so hopefully we’ll get
good weather.

We drove to Nashville today and were pretty impressed with it. We
didn’t have much time but we paid a quick visit to the state museum
and admired the decent architecture, both old and new. We don’t have a
photo to blog of it, but look up the AT&T building in Nashville. It
has the nickname of the Batman building and it’s easy to see why. The
photo below is the state capitol building.

It would have been nice to explore the city more but we have so many
places we want to see before our trip is over and it was very hot!