It absolutely blows my mind that I took these pictures over a week ago. And that these pictures have been uploaded and sitting in my draft folder since then. Unbelievable.

So let’s talk about our Saturday in Asheville last weekend.

We started with a trip to the Visitor’s Center because the lovely @Foodtopia had left us a present.

There are SO MANY goodies in this bag. Goodies that we didn’t have time to take full advantage of this weekend. But, never fear, we’ll be all over them on our trip in November.

I don’t know why we never visited the Visitor’s Center before. It was beautiful and user-friendly and well organized. We especially liked the Relocation section. Hey, we can dream, right?

In her wonderful note to me, Foodtopia suggested that we check out one of the farmers markets in town. We knew we had a lot of on-foot exploring to do, so we chose the market closest to where we park downtown. Although it wasn’t a farmers market exactly, it was one of the neatest shopping experiences I’ve seen. Again, somewhere we’d never been before.

Say hello to the Downtown Market.

This is where Nathan and I would shop if we lived there. Think of it as a kind of scratch and dent grocery store. The produce was awesome. The groceries were very cheap and may have had smashed corners on the boxes of pasta or the expiration date may be rapidly approaching. Reminded me of the Oprah show I saw on repeat a while back about Freeganism. I really wonder how much of this food would just end up in the trash if it weren’t for stores like this. And why there aren’t more stores like this. And the brands I saw on the shelves? I felt like I was looking through the cabinets of Jaime or Kath. So many organic and clean-eating brands. I loved it. I would shop here. And have a much smaller grocery bill.

In the other half of the market was a very weird community store. It was a cross between a flea market and the community art spaces I’m going to show you later in the week (note to self: put artist links in that post!). They really did have a little bit of everything. See what I mean?

We moved on to the main section of downtown to find that the Chocolate Fetish had gotten quite the makeover. The space was twice as large as we were used to.

But the sweets were just as fantastic. Fantastic looking, anyway. Because we went with the Bluth stand-by and ended up with choclate covered bananas.

Even though we had to google a location (what did we ever do before we had smartphones?) we ended up at L.O.F.T. It kinda reminds me of Third Street Stuff. Over the top. Awesome. And also great mirrors for picture taking.

And then my absolute favorite store in town: Asheville Spice and Tea Exchange. I could really spend hours and hours and hundreds of dollars in here. We are encouraged to take the lids off the jars and smell. They’ll measure packages out for anything you want. Spices, teas, sugars, spice mixes. Hmmm. I only came out with Applewood Smoked Salt, Lavender, and some Mulling Spices for Nathan.

We headed across the street to Malaprop’s. We are definitely bookstore people, and this is probably our ultimate favorite. Great selection. Odd selection. Regional section is my favorite.

Speaking of favorites, I’ve gotten several pieces of my favorite jewelry from Dolce Vita. I almost bought a few gifts for the Niece in here, but I kept it together. I don’t want to spoil her that bad. Yet.

We see a lot of pro-Asheville stickers and such here, but this is my absolute favorite. I so wish I could have found one (or ten) for purchase.

Because truer words nave never been spoken.