Little Switzerland Grandfather Mountain Retreat

[CarolinaViper]

To our friends in the AL/TN and GA Region,

The Carolinas Region has planned a new event for this year. If you like the Tail of the Dragon, you will like this - plus there is more planned than just a drive down some great roads. Take a look at the below information and click on the links to see if you are interested, so far we have 12 couples going.

Little Switzerland /Grandfather Mountain Retreat

Date: Oct 20th (Friday ) – Oct 22nd (Sunday)

Location: Spruce Pine, NC

If you have never seen the gorgeous NC mountains in the fall, you are missing a wonderful sight. Even those of us, who are fortunate to live in the mountains are amazed at the wonderful colors. We have planned a great time for driving - sightseeing and my favorite, eating and socializing. If you can make it, I guarantee you will have a great time.

The mountain location is located near the city of Spruce Pine, NC, right on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Little Switzerland was so named because its sweeping panoramas of deep valleys and distant ranges resemble those in the foothills of Swiss Alps. You will be enchanted by the Inn’s old world charm, lovingly preserved by the Jensen family for generations. Fine continental dining, generous accommodations, interesting Swiss shops, all in a peaceful, scenic mountain setting in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Close to area attractions, Switzerland Inn has the closest accommodations to Mount Mitchell and is the only commercial property on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
We have several events planned to include a drive to the scenic Grandfather Mountain, take a very short walk to the mile-high swinging bridge were you can see the panoramic view of the mountains that are along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Also, planned in route to Grandfather Mountain, is a stop at Linville Caverns, where you can actually walk and see the inside of a mountain. So, not to leave the Vipers to themselves, we have also planned a short ride on the “Diamond Back”, not to rival the Tail of the Dragon, but it is a nice curvy road and it is on our route to Grandfather Mountain.

We have two hotels available to us, one is the Little Switzerland Inn, that provides different level of accommodations, several restaurants, and a bar/lounge. The other hotel, is the Pine Valley Motel, with more economy friendly rates, but does not offer the amenities of the Little Switzerland.

Dinner plans for Friday night will be at the Little Switzerland and for Saturday night's dinner will be at Twisted Laurel, located at the Spruce Pine golf course, right across from the Pine Valley Motel.

Note: Please respond via email if you are interested in attending and/or make your motel reservation early, as the rooms become very limited at this time of year. Hopefully, we will get enough interested to make this an event this year.

Hotel Links

Little Switzerland: https://switzerlandinn.com/

Pine Valley: http://www.pinevalleymotel.com/

Diamondback Route: https://switzerlandinn.com/diamondback/the-route/

[Purplerain]

I appreciate you posting this here, my wife and I are already in, we're actually going up Thursday night. Look forwarding to meeting you all and hope we have great weather for the weekend rides through the mountains. Thanks Mark

[uvbnbit]

Great idea. Looks great. Unfortunately, we already have plans that week but if something changes for us....

[CarolinaViper]

To those attending the Little Switzerland /Grandfather Mountain event, the drive to Grandfather Mountain has been change; instead we are driving to Blowing Rock, NC. Unfortunately, we are going at a high tourist seasonal time, like us, everybody wants to see the fall foliage during this time of year. The staff at Grandfather Mountain stated they could not provide us with dedicated parking, that we would have to park our Vipers in the general public parking area. The staff at blowing Rock is willing to reserve 15-20 parking spaces (blocked off with traffic cones).

The below itinerary needs to be adhered to as much as possible for the Linville Caverns, Blowing Rock and lunch locations. All places understand and are willing to accommodate our special parking wishes, so that we don’t have to worry about door dings from other vehicles.

I know some of you were excited about the Grandfather Mountain site, but Blowing Rock will have some excellent views of the surrounding mountains and the route via the Parkway is very scenic. Click on the links below for some of the item we will see en route and at Blowing Rock.

At the very bottom of this email are individual Google map links to each place we are going. You may want to save them to you navigation system and/or smart phone. Please ensure you have at least 3/4 tank of fuel before leaving Saturday morning, as we are sort of on a tight schedule due parking arrangements at these locations.

If you did not receive the email with dates, times, and locations, please PM me with your email address and I will forward the email to you.

Thanks,

Jeff B.