NEWS · B2 Level - Part 6

A field trip to Asheville, North Carolina

Welcome to Asheville, North Carolina. Months after Hurricane Helen's devastation, this mountain town is on the rebound.

Level: B2 · 25 sentences

Transcript

  1. Welcome to Asheville, North Carolina.
  2. Months after Hurricane Helen's devastation, this mountain town is on the rebound.
  3. There's something for everyone.
  4. And I feel the best way to explore it is on two wheels.
  5. The 8000 acre Biltmore Estate is the largest privately owned home in the country.
  6. Founded by George Vanderbilt, it helped put Asheville on the map.
  7. You're basically doing time travel.
  8. You're going back into a time in the 1890s with the gilded era.
  9. It has 75 fireplaces and 250 rooms.
  10. You can tour the luxurious home and even stay overnight.
  11. Outside you can bike, hike, and discover the ancient art of falconry.
  12. What is falconry?
  13. Falconry is actually hunting with birds of prey.
  14. We don't use a rifle or a shotgun or a bow.
  15. The bird does the killing.
  16. We're never this close to birds of prey.
  17. They have someone handle them, they look at these birds differently.
  18. Heading into town, we took a scenic detour on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
  19. It's been gradually reopening after Hurricane Helen.
  20. But before that, it was the most visited national park unit in the nation.
  21. It's 469 miles of uninterrupted motor road.
  22. This park was designed by landscape architects that thought if I come around this corner, what would be a beautiful vista to see?
  23. And so there was a lot of thought that went into what that total experience would be like on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
  24. After a day in Asheville, we barely scratched the surface.
  25. But if you ever find yourself here, your best bet is to just take the plunge.