My wife and I celebrated our twenty-third anniversary at the Barnsley Gardens resort last week. This most improbably located gem in north Georgia is only a few miles outside of Adairsville, about an hour north of Atlanta and south of Chattanooga with roughly the same traveling time. My general rule of thumb for vacations is that I steadfastly refuse to stay anywhere that isn't nicer than where I live. No problems there.Barnsley Gardens far exceeded my wildest expectations. In fact, I had only one complaint about the whole experience, if that's what you would call the purpose of my call...for the first time in memory, I called the resort after we left with my concern about being under-billed for our stay. The package we selected came with a complimentary round of golf for two OR a one-hour massage in the spa as part of the deal, or so I thought. Since my wife doesn't play golf and doesn't like massage, I took the freebie that came with the package, but also booked a one-hour facial for her. When the smoke cleared from billing, it was clear to me that no charges for the facial showed up on our bill, even though I signed a slip of paper charging the service to our room bill. It turned out that we didn't plan a long enough stay to include golf, anyway. As you can see from the pictures, we had plenty to see, walking the breathtaking gardens and exploring the ruins of the old Barnsley manor. Of course, "room" is a euphemism for the one bedroom standalone cottage we had to ourselves. When the staff found out it was our anniversary, we were showered with … [Read more...]