Charleston, die Great Smoky Mountains, Gatlinburg - 3 Bundesstaaten an 1 Tag

Thursday 27.05. - Charleston-Gatlinburg-Maggie Valley (South Carolina-Tennessee-North Carolina)

Already before 8 a.m. we sit in the car, the sun shines from the blue sky, so once again down to the East Battery and Bay Street to photograph the houses in the right light (again). We also drive over the cobblestones through the beautiful Tradd Street and take pictures.

But then we go back west. Today we have a long trip ahead of us and actually we just want to go to the edge of the Smoky Mountains near Asheville (North Carolina) and visit the Biltmore Estates there. This is a castle-like house of the Vanderbilts, where they have gathered furniture styles from countless trips.

We stop at a tourist information office just before Asheville. The woman there tells us that the admission is around $60 per person. That's too much for me to see furniture collections from an American. The lady there recommends Asheville as a dream place "Asheville has it all." Well, we already have a troubled relationship with Asheville, since we couldn't find an affordable hotel in this supposedly famous for Art Deco city on the internet from Germany.

Since the weather is fantastic and we have about 30 degrees Celsius, we spontaneously decide not to stay in Asheville and to drive to the Smoky Mountains today. The weather forecast for tomorrow is bad and since the Smokies got their name because of the haze or fog, it's not really promising to experience it in bad weather.

Let's go along Route 19 towards the Smokies and we find in Maggie Valley, a small town on the road with a view of the mountains, a Best Western hotel and get a great room for $55. We have a balcony and a huge corner room, rocking chairs in front of the room.

We drop off our bags and get right back in the car and drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway towards the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a highly praised scenic road through the Appalachians. It begins in the north in Shenandoah National Park, where we will also go, and stretches for a total of 467 miles from Virginia through North Carolina to the Cherokee Indian Reservation at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains. The Parkway was started in 1935 as a work relief program in the midst of the Great Depression, but was not completed until 1987. It was America's first scenic road exclusively reserved for touring traffic, with no billboards, only a few rest areas, and little else to see besides nature. There is only one gas station along the entire Parkway!

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a national park without an entrance fee, which for us initially consists only of a road from east to west through this hilly landscape.

Tennessee and North Carolina share the only 85 km long and 30 km wide park, whose highest elevations are among the most prominent points in the eastern United States. About 109 km of the Appalachian Trail (the famous hiking trail that goes all the way to Maine) leads through the Smoky Mountains, crossing the 2,080 m high Clingman's Dome from where you have a view of the mountain ranges covered in frequent haze, which gave the park its name.

So we drive on a small section of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is rather unspectacular. Beautiful, but mostly driving through leafy forests without much visibility. Every now and then you can look at the gentle, hazy hills. Photography is difficult, everything is damp. The national park that we reach is crossed by a road and has no admission fee. At the end is Gatlinburg.

So we drive through this hilly landscape, mostly up high. It's a one-lane road, which you can't really imagine being crowded during the peak season. It's still quite empty now, but it will definitely be much fuller tomorrow for Memorial Day weekend.

About halfway to Gatlinburg, there is Newfound Gap at about 1,700 meters high and the border between North Carolina and Tennessee. Today we have therefore traveled to 3 states: South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee!

The view from Newfound Gap is beautiful but also "smoky" and it's not easy to take pictures. We walk about 50 meters on the Appalachian Trail, of which we have already read so much and which somehow fascinates us. A sign says: It's still almost 2000 miles to walk to Kathadin Mountain in Maine - the end of the trail!

We continue and see more forest and even more forest, with occasional views of hazy mountain slopes.

The entrance to Gatlinburg is equally impressive and terrible after the previous backdrop. It's like a Las Vegas for poor people, with noisy and shabby shops, snack bars, fast food and souvenir shops lined up on a single main street.

In the hope that this cannot be the case everywhere, we drive the road to the end, but turn around before going back into the forest.

Quote from my travel guide:

"In the immediate vicinity of the northern park boundary, Gatlinburg, with its concentrated clusters of motels, shopping malls, souvenir shops, amusement parks, and restaurants, presents a strong contrast to the natural scenery in the national park. The tourist hotspot, located in a narrow valley, presents itself as a pre-Alpine version of Torremolinos."

We cannot disagree with that...

It's almost 5 p.m., but it is unimaginable for us to stay here to eat something (which we haven't done since breakfast at 7:30 a.m.). So we drive the whole way back through the Smokies, where there is also no place to eat. We hope for a small town called Cherokee, which is called "authentic Indian village" everywhere. A term that will take on a completely new meaning for us on this trip. That was also the statement of the woman who described Asheville reverently as "Asheville has it all," which gave us the impression that she lacked the right words to describe the beauty of this city.

After a good hour's drive and 35 miles, we reach Cherokee, the "authentic Indian village," which looks like a small version of Gatlinburg, except that there are also huge casinos here.

Everything we read about this place at home cannot be found here, and the suspicion arises that the travel guide writers have never been here.

Our stomachs are rumbling, it's 6 p.m., and we have been sitting in the car for 10 hours... Since we don't want McDonald's or a pancake house, we keep driving and find an all-you-can-eat restaurant behind Cherokee with an acceptable buffet for $10.95. Salad and hot food are quickly eaten. It's only 6:45 p.m. when we arrive back at the hotel after an 11-hour and about 400-mile day.

I retreat to the balcony in a rocking chair and read in the newspaper that yesterday a black bear walked right through the city of Asheville. There are impressive photos.

In front of me is a mountainside, an extension of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and a few crazy Americans who let their dog swim in the hotel pool - there's always something to watch...!

Peaceful atmosphere at the end of this day. The Smokies weren't as beautiful as we thought, but now we know that :-).