Archive for free things in Asheville
October 24, 2009 at 5:57 am
· Filed under Asheville, Asheville B&B, Asheville activites, B&B, B&B alternative, B&Bs, Fall Foliage, Lovers' Loop Retreat, free things in Asheville, newsletters, vacation rental ·Tagged alternative B&B, Asheville, Asheville activities, Asheville festivals, Asheville NC, Blue Ridge Parkway, free stuff to do, free things to do, Lovers' Loop Retreat
Lovers’ Loop Retreat November muse-letter
The view from Lovers’ Loop Retreat here in Asheville, N.C., is looking like lollipops, with the trees doing the orange, yellow and red foliage dance, and our mountain views re-emerging as the leaves in the distance drop from their tethers. For the next few weeks, there should be nice color around our Asheville vacation rental and in the surrounding mountains, so it’s a great time to come and embrace Asheville’s autumn.
The foliage, of course, is FREE to view, and Lovers’ Loop Retreat is within a minute of one of the very best viewing routes, the Blue Ridge Parkway. Treat yourself with a stay at our guest suite, and experience the splendor! We have events posted through December and into 2010 on our Web site, www.loversloopretreat.com. Use the Web site to check out what’s going on whenever you plan your trip to Asheville and Lovers’ Loop Retreat, an Asheville bed and breakfast alternative. You can link to our blog, http://loversloopretreat.wordpress.com, on the home page.
In addition to the foliage and the Halloween happenings listed on our home page’s events calendar, November brings a cool mix of music to downtown Asheville. The Asheville Civic Center (and its Thomas Wolfe Auditorium) and the Diana Wortham Theatre host troubadours Leonard Cohen on Nov. 1, Jackson Browne on Nov. 12, Nanci Griffith on Nov. 14 and George Winston on Nov. 21.
If film is your fancy, the Asheville Film Festival will be Nov. 5-8 with its diversity of films political and dramatic, quirky and comedic, weird and wonderful. This festival is growing and gaining acclaim, so come and enjoy the range of entertainment.
Catch the holiday spirit at the “Christmas at Biltmore Estate” extravaganza, which runs Nov. 6- Jan. 3, 2010. This annual transformation of what claims to be America’s largest home draws lots of people who find magic in the setting and the decorations.
For art lovers, the River Arts District Studio Stroll just outside downtown Asheville on Nov. 14-15 is a must-see, and it’s FREE. Dozens of artists open their studio doors to visitors, who can watch art being created and get some good deals sometimes, too.
If you’re ready for more Christmas events, the Asheville Lyric Opera’s annual Christmas concert will be Nov. 20 downtown. Asheville’s Montford Park Players perform “A Christmas Carol” Dec. 3-6 and Dec. 10-13, and there’s a Christmas festival Dec. 4-6 in the historic Biltmore Village outside downtown Asheville.
All of these events and activities and more are listed on our Web site. Please pass along our muse-letter to your friends. And join us at Lovers’ Loop Retreat. See you in Asheville!
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October 19, 2009 at 5:54 am
· Filed under Asheville, Asheville activites, B&B alternative, Lovers' Loop Retreat, free things in Asheville, vacation rental ·Tagged alternative B&B, Asheville, Asheville activities, Asheville NC, Asheville night life, free events, Halloween, Lovers' Loop Retreat
Spend your Halloween weekend in Asheville, NC, this year, and enjoy the related activities. All of these fun happenings and more are within a few minutes of Lovers’ Loop Retreat, our Asheville bed and breakfast alternative. Join the party!
You don’t want to miss the popular and zany LaZoom tours, which are offbeat bus tours of Asheville. LaZoom offers an annual haunted bus ride at Halloween, and this year the tours will be Oct. 29-31. They’ll have live music on every tour. Find the link on our home page events calendar for more information.
The Asheville Halloween Party will be Oct. 31 at the Haywood Park Hotel grand ballroom downtown. The event will feature Halloween stuff plus a local improvisational comedy group, the Feral Chihuahuas.
Malaprop’s, the most popular bookstore downtown and an Asheville icon, will host the Graveyard Book Party on Oct. 31. This free event will feature design-your-own-tombstone contests and costume contests, among other activities.
If you enjoy ghost stories, check out “Skeered,” an evening of stories and hauntings with a local flavor Oct. 22-24 and Oct. 29-31 in Asheville. Call 828-254-1921, ext. 890 for more info.
At Lovers’ Loop Retreat, an Asheville vacation rental, we promise not to scare you, but we’ll offer a welcoming, affordable place to stay while you enjoy Asheville’s haunts. Happy Halloween!
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October 2, 2009 at 5:08 am
· Filed under Asheville, Asheville activites, B&B alternative, Lovers' Loop Retreat, free things in Asheville, nature, vacation rental ·Tagged Asheville, Asheville activities, Asheville NC, Blue Ridge Parkway, free events, free stuff to do, free things to do, Lovers' Loop Retreat
The North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville hosts the annual bonsai expo Oct. 10-11. The arboretum has a growing collection of more than 100 specimens of bonsai, which are miniature trees, shrubs and vines. The collection includes Japanese maple, Chinese elm, tropical plants, American plants such as limber pine and species native to the Asheville area, such as the Eastern white pine.
The arboretum is a beautiful autumn drive of about 20 minutes along the Blue Ridge Parkway from Lovers’ Loop Retreat, our Asheville bed and breakfast alternative. The arboretum is worth every mile, and the bonsai expo is fascinating. The event honors the ages-old Asian tradition of cultivating miniature plants, shaping them in artistic ways and arranging them in distinctive containers.
The event is free once you pay the arboretum’s entrance fee of $6 per car. You also can access the arboretum for free by bike or on foot. The bonsai expo features the juried work of bonsai growers from clubs in a six-state region of the eastern United States. There will be educational programs, workshops and bonsai plants and tools for sale.
While you’re at the arboretum, take the opportunity to walk or bike on the many trails and to see the different gardens. It’s a great place to visit year-round when you stay at Lovers’ Loop Retreat, one of the Asheville vacation rentals.
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September 23, 2009 at 5:24 am
· Filed under Asheville, Asheville B&B, Asheville activites, Asheville art, Asheville seasons, B&B alternative, Fall Foliage, Lovers' Loop Retreat, free things in Asheville, nature, vacation rental ·Tagged alternative B&B, Asheville, Asheville activities, Asheville festivals, Asheville NC, Blue Ridge Parkway, Fall Foliage, free stuff to do, free things to do, Lovers' Loop Retreat
Lovers’ Loop Retreat October Muse-letter
October is one of the peak months for activities in Asheville, N.C., each year. And one of the peak activities is leaf-peeking. Our Lovers’ Loop Retreat, an Asheville bed and breakfast alternative, offers easy access to the multi-hued trees that await your eyes. With the Blue Ridge Parkway within two minutes of Lovers’ Loop Retreat, you can be on that non-commercial, scenic road in no time and head north or south to catch some color. The parkway is popular for hiking, biking and cruising by car, and in the fall you’ll find many beautiful photo opportunities for miles and miles. You can be a leaf-peeper for FREE! There’s no charge to use the parkway, so come and treat yourself to some eye candy.
It’s not just the trees that explode here in autumn. The Asheville area explodes with activities in October, including two of the year’s biggest events, both Oct. 15-18: the Lake Eden Arts Festival, or LEAF, and the Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands. You can find information about these and other happy happenings in October, through December and in 2010 on our Web site, http://www.loversloopretreat.com/. Use the Web site to check out what’s going on whenever you plan your trip to Asheville and Lovers’ Loop Retreat, an Asheville vacation rentals. You can link to our blog, http://loversloopretreat.wordpress.com/, on the home page.
Some of the events in October are FREE. There’s bonsai (miniature trees), Bonnie Raitt and locally-made beer. You’ll find art fairs, apples and an animal fiber fair. There’s a nontraditional circus, nationally-known comedians and the annual LGBTQ festival. The fun goes on: a chili cook-off, lyric opera, Marianne Faithfull and a chrysanthemum show. Take your pick, or mix and match, but don’t miss out.
The Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands is a premier arts event that’s held twice a year in downtown Asheville. The fair offers an amazing variety of arts and crafts by members of the Asheville-based Southern Highland Craft Guild, which represents craft artists from multiple states. You’ll be dazzled.
The LEAF event in Black Mountain, an easy 15-minute drive from Lovers’ Loop Retreat, also is offered twice a year. LEAF features an array of performing and healing arts from around the world. In addition to live music, dance, poetry and visual art, LEAF has meditation, massage, yoga, tai chi, even hula hooping. Go whoop it up!
Check our Web site for a peek into November, which brings Leonard Cohen in concert Nov. 1 in Asheville, the Asheville Film Festival Nov. 5-8, Christmas at Biltmore Estate starting Nov. 6, Jackson Browne on Nov. 12, Nanci Griffith on Nov. 14 and George Winston on Nov. 21. Dig it!
All of these events and activities and more are listed on our Web site. Please pass along our muse-letter to your friends. And join us at Lovers’ Loop Retreat. See you in Asheville!
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September 21, 2009 at 8:50 pm
· Filed under Asheville, Asheville activites, Asheville seasons, Lovers' Loop Retreat, free things in Asheville, vacation rental ·Tagged Asheville activities, Asheville festivals, Asheville NC, Blue Ridge Parkway, folk dancing, folk music, free events, free things to do, Lovers' Loop Retreat
We enjoyed the Heritage Festival on Saturday. It was a great day to be on the Blue Ridge Parkway - felt like fall was definitely on the way. We watched the cloggers who danced to an all-woman old-time musical group called the Blue-Eyed Girls. They played mandolin, fiddle and old-time banjo – and they sang some beautiful harmony. And all this was free!
The crafts included some wonderful bark carvings. There’s a kind of tree that produces very thick and fissured bark, which the carver used to sculpt little cabins and tree ornaments. I could imagine tiny people living in them.
Another craft I found interesting was unique rocking chairs made with unusual tree trunks, branches and molted (discarded) antlers attached as part of the structure. I sat in one and it was really hard to get up. Sorry I didn’t get a photo! Next time… In the meantime, we hope to see you at Lovers’ Loop Retreat, our Asheville vacation rental!
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September 18, 2009 at 11:23 pm
· Filed under Asheville, Asheville B&B, Asheville activites, Asheville seasons, B&B alternative, Lovers' Loop Retreat, free things in Asheville, nature, vacation rental ·Tagged alternative B&B, Asheville, Asheville activities, Asheville NC, Blue Ridge Parkway, free stuff to do, free things to do
Once you get to Asheville, you don’t have to pay anything for the mountain views and leaf-peeping you can enjoy in the autumn season. Our Lovers’ Loop Retreat, one of the Asheville vacation rentals, is a great base for your road tripping, hiking, biking, kayaking and photography excursions in the fall.
Fall at Lovers' Loop Retreat
There’s a reason people flock to Asheville in autumn: it’s beautiful. From late September into November, you can find pretty foliage somewhere in the area, depending on elevation and weather. There’s no guarantee about how the colors will play out this fall because it depends on rainfall and temperatures, but you’re sure to find some lovely red, yellow and orange leaves somewhere in the area.
Lovers’ Loop Retreat is a stone’s throw from the Blue Ridge Parkway, one of the best places to enjoy leaf season in Western North Carolina. You can take the scenic parkway south and north to find inspiring vistas that will take your breath.
We usually have some pretty coloration here at Lovers’ Loop Retreat every fall, too, with the dogwoods, oaks, serviceberries, sourwoods, tulip poplars and other trees changing color whenever their time comes. And guests who visit Lovers’ Loop Retreat after about mid-November have mountain views to enjoy once the leaves have fallen.
Stay at our Asheville bed and breakfast alternative this fall to color your world!
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September 13, 2009 at 10:45 pm
· Filed under Asheville, Asheville B&B, Asheville activites, B&B alternative, Lovers' Loop Retreat, free things in Asheville, vacation rental ·Tagged alternative B&B, Asheville, Asheville activities, Asheville NC, Blue Ridge Parkway, folk dancing, free events, free music, free stuff to do, free things to do, gee-haw-whimmy-diddle, Lovers' Loop Retreat
To get a flavor of the wonderful mountain culture in the Asheville area, there’s no better event than the annual Heritage Weekend Sept. 19-20 at the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The center is just a few minutes from our Lovers’ Loop Retreat, an Asheville bed and breakfast alternative, which is a stone’s throw from the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway.
Music group at the Heritage Fest
Heritage Weekend is FREE, and it’s sponsored by the Southern Highland Craft Guild, one of the oldest craft guilds in the country. The event features live, traditional mountain music and dance and exhibits on beekeeping, canning and preserving, toy-making, spinning, quilting, basket weaving, pottery, whittling, blacksmithing and other traditions worthy of preserving.
You’ll also see carving, chair-making and broom-making, natural dyeing, an apple cider press at work and, one of our favorite things, sheep shearing. We love to watch the shearing each year!
waiting to be sheared
Among the most popular events at Heritage Weekend is a competition with the whimmy diddle, an Appalachian wooden toy.
Don’t miss this fun weekend that’s so close to our Asheville vacation rental!
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September 1, 2009 at 6:13 am
· Filed under Asheville, Asheville B&B, Asheville activites, B&B, B&B alternative, Lovers' Loop Retreat, free things in Asheville, vacation rental ·Tagged alternative B&B, Asheville, Asheville activities, Asheville NC, free events, free stuff to do, free things to do, Lovers' Loop Retreat
With Labor Day coming up this weekend, we’re taking stock of a few fun, free things to do in Asheville, N.C. We love holidays!
Guests at our Lovers’ Loop Retreat, an Asheville bed and breakfast alternative, are close to all things free in the Asheville area. One of our favorite events, the Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival (LAAFF), happens this Sunday, Sept. 6 downtown. It’s a blast, a circus that’s not really a circus, a zoo without animals. It’s the best people-watching opportunity in the city each year, and it has a terrific mix of live music and dance – and it’s all FREE! It’s all local, too—planned by local people with local vendors and local performers, so it offers the best authentic taste of Asheville’s heart-felt funkiness that there is.
Another free annual event is the North Carolina Apple Festival in Hendersonville, just south of Asheville, this coming weekend, starting Friday, Sept. 4 through Sept. 7. Hendersonville is North Carolina’s biggest apple-producing area in a state that’s among the top apple producers in the U.S. Live music, a parade, crafts. Check it out with the apple of your eye!
Another great, free activity for the holiday weekend is hitting the Blue Ridge Parkway, the beautiful scenic road just around the corner from Lovers’ Loop Retreat, one of the Asheville vacation rentals. The parkway is the perfect place for hiking, biking, taking photographs and just cruising on a fabulous holiday weekend. You’ll be in nature, and you’ll see some great mountain views. The parkway leads to Mount Mitchell State Park, not far from Lovers’ Loop Retreat, where you’ll find the highest peak in the eastern U.S. Shouldn’t miss it!
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August 28, 2009 at 7:45 pm
· Filed under Asheville, Asheville B&B, Asheville activites, B&B alternative, Lovers' Loop Retreat, free things in Asheville, vacation rental ·Tagged alternative B&B, Asheville, Asheville activities, free music, free stuff to do, free things to do
One of the most popular spots in downtown Asheville is Pritchard Park, a cool public space that pulses with activity for most of the year: live music, rallies, drumming, movies, chess games and more. The park is nearly 80 years old, and it’s getting younger with the help of a preservation group.
Many guests at our Lovers’ Loop Retreat, an Asheville vacation rental, stop at the park to check out the scene—and everything is FREE. The scene includes newly refurbished stone waterfalls, dozens of flower planters, an incredible drum circle every Friday night, live music concerts by day and night throughout the week, impromptu live music whenever, Saturday arts markets, movie nights and even the Tuesday Hoop Jam, a weekly hula hoop gig in the afternoon and evening. There are permanent chess tables – just bring your own pieces and join in.
It’s free. It’s fun. It’s hot. It’s eye-opening. And it’s a place to explore when you visit our Lovers’ Loop Retreat, an Asheville bed and breakfast alternative.
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August 25, 2009 at 5:10 am
· Filed under Asheville, Asheville B&B, Asheville activites, B&B alternative, Lovers' Loop Retreat, NC, free things in Asheville, newsletters, vacation rental ·Tagged alternative B&B, Asheville, Asheville accommodations, Asheville activities, Asheville festivals, Asheville NC, beer, Blue Ridge Parkway, bluegrass music, free events, free stuff to do, free things to do, Indigo Girls in Asheville, Lovers' Loop Retreat
September rocks in Asheville, N.C. Great stuff going on all month long. Concerts, craft festivals, bluegrass and beer, organic and apple fests, a fair that celebrates farming and gardening, sustainable energy and healthy living and more. And yes, with the start of autumn in September, you may feel that nip in the air here, too.
At Lovers’ Loop Retreat, our Asheville bed and breakfast alternative, we’ve made some enhancements this summer. In addition to exploring all that the Asheville area offers, some of our guests enjoy hanging out at our vacation rental, playing pingpong or just relaxing in a private, peaceful place. In addition to Wireless, our guest suite has lots of information about attractions, restaurants and events to help visitors sort through all of the possibilities.
Many of the activities in September are FREE. Visit our Web site at http://www.loversloopretreat.com/ to see a list of events we update regularly. We’ve posted events through December and into 2010, so you can see what’s going on whenever you plan your trip to Asheville and Lovers’ Loop Retreat.
One of our favorite annual events is LAAFF, the Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival, on Sept. 6 in downtown Asheville. This is a free, funky street fair that really gives a flavor of Asheville’s brand of quirkiness. Many locals, including us, turn out for this fair. You’ll find a great diversity of live music, belly dancing and other dance performances, poetry, sketch comedy, drumming groups, bicycle jousting, unusual vendors. It’s a real circus.
The annual North Carolina Apple Festival is Sept. 4-7. The Asheville area is the state’s largest apple-producing region, and this popular festival is just south of Asheville.
Another fun, free fair is the annual Organicfest in downtown Asheville on Sept. 13. Live music, unusual vendors and crafts, good food. A great opportunity to expand your organic mind in a very organic-minded city.
One of our favorite bands, the Indigo Girls, will play Sept. 17 at the Orange Peel in downtown Asheville. This area loves the Indigos, whom we’ve seen perform several times here in recent years. They always give Asheville a good show. The Orange Peel is a great, intimate venue for them.
The Brewgrass Festival on Sept. 19 in Asheville mixes bluegrass with beers from the area’s many local microbreweries. Beer is big business in Asheville, and at the festival you’ll understand why.
Heritage Weekend Sept. 19 and Sept. 20 is a big deal at the Folk Art Center on the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway. The parkway – and the center – are just around the corner from Lovers’ Loop Retreat, and we go to this free event every year. It’s sponsored by the Southern Highland Craft Guild with traditional mountain music, dance, storytelling and crafts. You’ll also see demonstrations about beekeeping, canning and preserving, whittling, toy-making and other things. The highlight is the World Gee Haw Whimmy Diddle Competition, (the whimmy diddle is an old-timey mountain toy) which you’ve got to see to understand.
On Sept. 25 and Sept. 26, the very popular and entertaining Womansong, an Asheville choral group, will perform in the area. People come from out of town to see this group, which gives polished, high-energy concerts with humor mixed in.
On Sept. 26 and Sept. 27, there’s another opportunity to see cool crafts at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville. Also on Sept. 26 and Sept. 27, the True Nature Country Fair a bit north of Asheville focuses on health and healing, social issues and politics, sustainable energy, gardening and farming.
All of these events and more are listed on our Web site. Please pass along our muse-letter to your friends. And join us at Lovers’ Loop Retreat. See you in Asheville!
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