Fifth Wedding Anniversary Trip to Jonesborough, TN

Home > Best Of, East Tennessee

Fifth Wedding Anniversary Trip to Jonesborough, TN

Sunday, August 17th, 2008 | Best Of, East Tennessee |

Saturday was our fifth wedding anniversary. (Happy anniversary, babe.) It was Saturday five years before that we got married in Jonesborough, the oldest city in Tennessee. We got married at Mill Spring Park and had the reception across the street at The Wedding Loft, a gorgeous 19th century building where the staff took care of all of the wedding arrangements.

We reserved the Eureka Inn for our friends and family. After the wedding and reception we had a party on the second story porch. The wedding was fun but stressful for us - with that behind us the party on the porch was the best part of the day.

We stayed next door at the Blair-Moore House, a bed and breakfast that dates to the early 1800s. Their Web page lists accolades for their breakfast from Southern Living and Inn Traveler and they’re well-deserved. Our breakfast this morning was a plate of fresh fruit (champagne grapes, strawberries, diced mango, and peach drizzled with French honey), smoked ham, egg frittata with homegrown Roma tomatoes and fresh basil, stuffed French toast with choice of maple syrup or cherry syrup, blueberry-coconut muffins, bacon, fresh mango-papaya-orange juice, and coffee. Absolutely delicious.

The upstairs Western-Native American Room where I stayed the night before the wedding has a second story balcony overlooking the street. The lower Victorian suite where Melissa and I stayed after our wedding and for our anniversary has a street level porch off of the parlor. The Victorian Room upstairs has a rear-facing porch overlooking the garden at the rear:

Cost for these rooms isn’t much more than you’d pay at a good chain hotel (between $125 and $160 per night) and includes that amazing breakfast, the hosts wonderful hospitality, and conversation with other guests over breakfast. At those prices why stay at a boring old hotel?

More pictures after the jump.

Jonesborough is best known for its storytelling festival the first weekend of October. Since our last visit the storytelling center has purchased the adjacent Hatcher Inn and begun restoration. It now has a new coat of paint and new landscaping, and part of it is being used for office space.

One hopes it will re-open one day as an inn. In its day its guests included all three of the Tennesseans who were also presidents - Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, and James Polk. Jackson once had a law office in Jonesborough and fought a duel on the outskirts of town. Johnson was from nearby Greeneville.

Foodwise, we like the Main Street Cafe for lunch and the Bistro for dinner. Jonesborough is one of those old mountain towns (like Hendersonville, Waynesville and Sylva in North Carolina) with fare far in excess of what you’d expect for such a remote location.