Heyho…I’m back from my two weeks USA vacation and we had a trip northwards to the Smoky Mountains. Therefore a short report about what I saw / experienced there.

On our way to the Smoky Mountains we stopped in Cherokee, which is related to the Indian Tribe. When visiting such an area I would normally hope for the chance to see stuff like how they lived in former times, what rituals they had, what did they teach their children. Due to my high expectations / wishes I can only say I was quite disappointed on how it looked like. Most of it were terrible tourism merch shops with some pottery that had indian motives but seemed to be produced in China. So .. all in all .. no need to go there, unfortunately.

The Smoky Mountains on the other side clearly exceeded my expectations. Wonderful nature, nice weather and two trails in the wild (or at least one, the other was on a good walking path). The first day we made a walk up to „Clingmans Dome“ where all the pictures of the dead pine trees are from. The second day we did a little trail through the woods and along a small river. I definitely need to get back there to do some more hiking in this area.

Gatlinburg was where we spend the night. We had a little apartment rented in the Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort. The apartment (and the view from it) were absolutely nice, but the walls in there thin as paper, so that I could basically here the neighbors party all night and calling friends to speak about that area the next morning. And I could understand EVERY word. So let’s say it’s fine for one or two days, but doesn’t work for a longer stay when you really want to be hiking full days.

Gatlinburg itself is a nice and very touristic little town where one can easily spend some fun and awesome nights with visiting shows or playing mini golf. We did the later and played the firehouse mini golf before we ended up in Calhouns for diner (strongly recommend for this one…very tasty dinner!).

So and now here’s for the pictures: