• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

Crystal chandeliers and nineteenth-century antiques decorate the Carolina Inn.    (Photo: Courtesy of The Carolina Inn)

Sample chèvre cheese and organic omelettes from the goats and chickens grazing out back at the Inn at Celebrity Dairy (from $90), an eight-room B&B and dairy farm that supplies cheese to local restaurants. (Watch the evening milking at the barn out back between 6 and 7 p.m.)

Request one of the south-facing rooms on the sixth floor at the Umstead Hotel & Spa to ensure a view of the three-acre lake and gardens from a private balcony. Even the spa is seasonal — the 50-minute raspberry-rhubarb facial ($110) is available only through August.

Listen to live bluegrass on the front porch of the Carolina Inn, a 1924 hotel decorated in southern colonial style (from $174). Picnic-style southern comfort food ($12) and cocktails ($6) are available during the Friday-night concerts.

Published on Jul 15, 2010 as a web exclusive.