Highlands North Carolina

A trip to the mountains of North Carolina. The small town of Highlands is up winding mountain roads, no way around that, you get to slow down and enjoy the views. This town is the Souths equivalent of Carmel, CA or Aspen Co. It is charming and the city planners have held firm with the edict of no chain stores. Everything is small boutiques or galleries. It is filled with flowers and happy shop owners who greeted everyone with smiles and conversation. There were lots of license plates from Georgia, Florida and Tennessee as well as the Carolinas. The visitors mostly have summer homes or rent cabins for months at a time. The temperature is balmy and afternoon rain showers are the norm.

Highlands has wonderful restaurants. We are Italian and Continental and fish and beef yum!
We are breakfast at the pharmacy which has a great soda fountain and reminded us of our old days in Scottsdale, AZ when Lutz pharmacy had a small cafe and home made pie to die for.

In addition to several very nice galleries, they also have a wonderful brand new art center called The Bascom. They have exhibition space, classromms, a seperate huge ceramics studio and an additional building that holds the kilns. The building is wood from an old barn in Pennsylvania. They even have a covered bridge.
Here are some additional photos of the town, the ponds and the beautiful area. Plan a visit we sure enjoyed it.

On the left is Bucks Cafe our favorite coffee and breakfast stop.
On the right is charming Main Street shops, early in the morning before the crowds of shoppers arrive.
There is a lovely botanical trail and information center around this group of natural lakes filled with lily pads in bloom. We saw orchids so tiny you could hardly find them, lizards basking in the sun and lots of beautiful birds. Highlands is definitely a place we will be going back to.