Discover and Celebrate the Bliss of a Wonderful Day Trip to Flat Rock in the Summer through the end of September.

Just about 3 miles from Hendersonville and less than 30 minutes down I-26 from Asheville is a delightful destination called Flat Rock.

Go during the Flat Rock Playhouse season in the Summer on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday, and not only can you enjoy exploring Carl Sandberg's Connemara, which will take the afternoon, but you can take in an early dinner at the Highland Lake Inn, a play at the Flat Rock Playhouse, and top it off with music and some wonderful wine at the Flat Rock Wine Shop's Back Room.

Carl Sandburg Home "Connemara" National Historic Site
in Flat Rock NC, 24 miles south of Asheville. $5 for tour. "... From June until mid-August, live performances of Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories and excerpts from the Broadway play, The World of Carl Sandburg, are presented at the park amphitheater. " Occasional "Special Events". See article in Literary Traveler "...Connemara is a large estate of 245-acres consisting of a 22 room white mansion on a hill, backed by mountains and fronted by green pastures with various lakes, barns and outbuildings. It was sold to the government after his death and is maintained as a National Historic Site by the U.S. Park Service. The hill approaching the house is steep and the climb ascends 100 feet over a third of a mile, but transportation is provided if the walk is too much. When you get to the house, there is a visitors center in the basement. Here you can peruse the bookstore and buy tickets for the tour, which is the only way to explore the house...." CLICK HERE for the rest of the story

Highly Recommended by AshevilleBliss.com
Season's at Highland Lake Inn
".... During our past travels to Spain, Mexico, Germany, Portugal and France, we picked up a taste for great food, superb wines and delightful service. With fresh vegetables coming straight out of the organic garden, the best chefs in North Carolina, warm and friendly servers and a wine list that continually wins the Wine Spectator award, we now receive the same great dining experience at our on-site restaurant, Season's!..."

Season's Restaurant & Organic Garden
".. Our 2-acre organic garden, when in season, provides the freshest ingredients possible for our award-winning restaurant, Season's. We also use local growers products in our menus. Highland Lake Inn provides special Organic Garden Tours and Lunches throughout the summer and early fall to educate our guests about how to grow, harvest, and then cook the vegetables, fresh herbs and flowers in their meals. Season's Restaurant and Highland Lake Inn use composting, and also use a drip irrigation system from our 40 acre lake to water the organic garden. Season's participates in the sustainable seafood program to ensure that the seafood we purchase is not environmentally destructive seafood harvesting...." View the photo album of the 'magical' Highland Lake Inn

Click on each of the dozens of categories to the left to uncover what makes the Asheville area so vital, so intriguing and so, well, UTTERLY BLISSFUL!

From Rolf Potts' Vagabonding blog:

I've never been one of those uptight literary types who thinks that you have to have actually read a book in order to recommend it to others. So I feel no trepidation in suggesting Eric Weiner's new travelogue-slash-memoir The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World The premise of the book is simple but intriguing-- here is Amazon's description:

Part foreign affairs discourse, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide, The Geography of Bliss takes the reader from America to Iceland to India in search of happiness, or, in the crabby author's case, moments of "un-unhappiness." The book uses a beguiling mixture of travel, psychology, science and humor to investigate not what happiness is, but where it is. Are people in Switzerland happier because it is the most democratic country in the world? Do citizens of Singapore benefit psychologically by having their options limited by the government? Is the King of Bhutan a visionary for his initiative to calculate Gross National Happiness? Why is Asheville, North Carolina so damn happy? With engaging wit and surprising insights, Eric Weiner answers those questions and many others, offering travelers of all moods some interesting new ideas for sunnier destinations and dispositions.

In the imaginary Netflix queue of books-that-I'm-planning-to-read, this one has just jumped to the top. By the way, why has no one started a Netflix for books? This question, and many more, I'll leave for another day.

The Back Room at the Flat Rock Wine Shop
is a wonderful place to enjoy the wonderful wines and other beverages of the Wine Shop... and to enjoy a fabulous schedule of local live music on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays ... plus open mic night every Wednesday. Food is available, prepared by Green River BBQ. Located in Flat Rock, about a half an hour from Asheville. "... walking distance from the Flat Rock Playhouse, we are your destination before or after the show..." DIRECTIONS

"Spanish Radio", a flashy energetic tune with a taste of sultry spanish flair performed by The Stereofidelics at the Back Room in Flat Rock Wine Shop.

Flat Rock Music Festival
End of September