Down from the mountain

I'm in Asheville, NC today. Primarily I'm here to see Matthew Ryan, one of my favourite singer/songwriters who's playing a rare gig here tonight. The place had been recommended to me though, so I came a few hours early to have a nosey around.


And it is lovely. Asheville is about a 2 hour drive from Charlotte, nestled in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. It's a pretty small town with a distinctly bohemian and even urban feel - all tie-dye and busy coffee shops of bright young things. The old town center, unlike Charlotte, is still very much the bustling centre of the place and the cobbled streets around it are bursting with interesting (and mostly independent) shops. The one of most interest to me was a record shop, specialising in "mountain music" (bluegrass essentially) but which was rather incongruously blaring Lily Allen on the stereo, singing her songs about Tescos and orange squash. I was confused for a moment, but came to my senses enough to browse around the incense haze and buy a couple of suitably old-timey albums.

Another major feature was an old-style Woolworths (with it's full title, F.W. Woolworth & Sons) - featuring a fifties-style soda fountain and considerably more classy than its English counterpart. I had a hot apple cider (which isn't alcoholic over here - pretty much just hot Copella apple juice) in a bookstore cafe. Apples seem to be something of an obsession round these parts - the roads around Asheville are lined with orchards where you can pick you own, like a massive version of the Cox orchards around Sandringham. They were all pretty much shut up until autumn though - this must be a hard time of year for all those apple growers...