Well, we left Greenville behind today after a fantastic few days, and headed north towards the Smoky Mountains. We stopped at the BMW manufacturing plant near Spartanburg to see have a look at the Zentrum Centre (museum and display) and enquire about a plant tour. The tours for the morning were fully booked and the only available one was at 1pm - way too long for us to wait - but I pleaded with the receptionist and she put us on the next tour at 10am!!!
The ninety minute tour was absoulutely awesome, we saw the whole production line from body welding, to painting, to interior fitting and then the final testing. They produce the all X5 aand X6 four wheel drives and the Z4 roadsters at the plant, all on the one line and we saw all models being made. The plant was so well organised and spotlessly clean and I could have spent an age just watching all the robots doing the various tasks. It was certainly - for me anyway - one of the highlights of the trip!
From there we drove the 60 odd miles to Asheville and stopped at Biltmore House, which a very old mansion built by the Vanderbuilt family and is the largest house in the USA.
                       

          
Boy what an eye opener!! Built in 1895 on an estate of 85,000 acres the huge french mansion has over 250 rooms with 63 bedrooms and 42 bathrooms. It is all set up for tourism these days with thousands of vsitors looking at the magnificent gardens and lakes and taking tours of the house. It was quite expensive to get in (US$53 per person) but it was well worth it, and we spent over 3 hours during a tour using audio headsets to help explain the various rooms. Extensive renovations have done over the years, all meticulously carried out to the smallest details. It made us realise just what serious wealth has been made here in the USA especially in the old days.