Carolinas

From now on, we finally head inland. Downtown Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, is not very exciting apart from a visit at the State Capitol. The grounds of the North Carolina Museum of Art, on the other hand, are the largest museum park in the country and feature world-class sculptures – an absolute highlight of this trip. In Durham, just a few miles away, we visit the American Tobacco Campus, now a residential and entertainment district and formerly home to Lucky Strike, the world’s largest tobacco factory. Greensboro, also known as Jeansboro because of the Lee and Wrangler headquarters located here, can also be explored in just a few hours.

The last city in this extended metropolitan area is Winston-Salem; here we stroll over the old Covered Bridge and through the Old Salem open-air museum. Then we finally head into the mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains to be precise. At Hanging Rock State Park, we hike to Hanging Rock; the view from up here is breathtaking. In the small town of Mount Airy, everything is about the Andy Griffith Show, which played here many decades ago and is known to almost everyone in the USA.

In the southernmost part of Virginia, we enter Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic route of 465 miles through the Appalachian Mountains. Unfortunately, much of the route is closed due to the devastating damage caused by Hurricane Helene last fall. So, we stay mostly on major roads, pass the college town of Boone, stop by Linville Falls and the impressive Catawba Falls and finally arrive in Asheville, which was at the center of Helene and suffered massive damage from the storm.

The city’s main attraction, the Biltmore Estate, has fortunately reopened. The gardens are beautiful and you can spend many hours here. This month, there are also millions of peaceful cicadas around Asheville, which have just hatched and are making a hell of a racket – an unusual and unique experience for us. In the afternoon, we check out the River Arts District and the restored downtown area; there is plenty to discover here, too.

After a coffee break at the Grove Park Inn, a luxury hotel high above the city, we continue on to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Unfortunately, Clingmans Dome, the highest point in the region at 6.645 feet, is covered by fog and rain; on sunny days, the view must be beautiful. We cross the state line into Tennessee and end up in Gatlinburg, which is, known as the gateway to the Smoky Mountains, one big amusement park for tourists.

Once again, we cross part of the Smokies, walk the Fighting Creek Nature Trail and check out The Sinks, a waterfall right next to the road. The last major city on this round trip is Knoxville; the Sunsphere in World’s Fair Park has been the city’s landmark since the 1982 World’s Fair. A tornado warning drives us to the Knoxville Museum of Art, where we look around for some time while the storm passes somewhere else.

On the long journey back to Charlotte, we check out the Dolly Parton statue in Sevierville; the country singer is the city’s most famous daughter. After a final overnight stay in Mooresville and a detour to Davidson College, where there is another small sculpture park, we head to Charlotte Douglas International Airport, where our trip through the Carolinas – including our detours to Georgia and Tennessee – comes to an end.