Bele Chere

27th July 2013

After our visit to the Biltmore yesterday, we stayed the night in a hotel just outside Ashville and decided we’d go in to the town for a few hours and then perhaps drive along some of the Blue Ridge Parkway. http://www.blueridgeparkway.org/ But as you’ll see, our plans changed.

As we drove into Ashville, the road we were on was closed at the edge of the town centre. We followed the Detour signs (which promptly vanished) and we found ourselves in some back streets. Several of the churches were offering parking for $5.00 for the day. So we decided we’d park and walk the ¼ mile in to town. We had no idea why the roads were closed but off we set.

In arriving in the town it became apparent that some kind of festival was taking place. We found an information booth and were told that it was Bele Chere. We were none the wiser but went with the flow.
The town is really attractive with some wonderful art deco style buildings and lots of independent shops, restaurants and bars.

So it would have been a joy to visit anyway. But with the Bele Chere festival happening it was wonderful.

On several stages dotted around the town centre live acts were playing. These were nearly all local musicians and some were playing country, some blue grass and some rock. I would advise all towns to adopt this approach so that when wives are shopping husbands can be put into a husband crèche with a beer and live music.

(By the way, talking of beer, Ashville boasts a number of excellent micro - breweries – well so I’m told obviously.)

We had such a good time that in the end we didn’t have time to drive some of the Parkway.
Apparently Bele Chere has been running for over 30 years and it brought thousands of people in to the town. But apparently this is going to be the last one as the local council says it costs too much to put on. Given the vast numbers of people attending and spending money I would have thought it generates a lot of income for the town.

We had our own theory about why it might be ending. Ashville itself feels quite a hippy, liberal kind of place and we wondered whether there might be some political motivation behind the closure of the festival?

Given that we've missed out on the Larmer Tree Festival (one of our favourites back home) and Greenbelt it was good to attend a festival over here. And it was a proper festival as there were portaloos! Though thankfully no mud.