• What to know if you go

Jay Clarke (ENLARGE)

Visitors browse for treasures on Dillsboro's main street at Enloe Marketplace, a Civil War-era house, featuring gifts, home accessories and furniture.

Dillsboro, N.C. — In the morning, billows of mist blur the mountainsides. A coverlet of quiet drapes the town. Windows are dark in white clapboard houses set amid leafy hardwoods, and the highway through town is unnaturally still.

Dillsboro, population 230, is just waking up on a summer day.

Soon, though, breakfast aromas will spill onto the sidewalks, shops will unshutter their doors and windows, cars will start streaming along the highway, and perhaps a train whistle will break the valley silence. The whistle belongs to the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, a tourist train that winds along the scenic Tuckaseegee River from its Dillsboro base.

The train is only one reason visitors come to Dillsboro and neighboring Sylva in summertime. The two towns, only two miles apart, are in the heart of some of the most attractive mountain country in America.

In summertime, thousands of vacationers come here to enjoy the cool air and simple ways of North Carolina's mountain country. They go river rafting and tubing, take hikes, browse the shops and galleries for local arts and crafts, go on scenic drives and dine on Southern specialties like country ham and collards.

Bikers wheel in for the Tour de Tuck over 102-mile and 60-mile routes with plenty of elevation gain. This year's bike challenge, named for the Tuckaseegee River, is Sept. 22. Other visitors simply relax in their mountain cabins, enjoying their stay in a sylvan setting.

Summer is a busy season, but peak visitation comes in the fall, when the hillsides burst into brilliant autumn colors.

Dillsboro's downtown is only two blocks long, but there's a lot packed into that space — more than 60 shops, a post office, the train station and four restaurants, including the town's most famous eatery, the Jarrett House. Nearly every visitor to Dillsboro dines at least once in the family-style hotel and restaurant, which has been a fixture here since 1884.

And Dillsboro is a town with plans, including a theater. "We've bought 16 acres and hope to build a $2.8 million playhouse on it," says Jean Hartbarger, mayor of the town and also owner of Jarrett House.

From Dillsboro, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad makes a variety of trips, following the Tuckaseegee River to Bryson City. In summer, the train runs daily at 1 p.m. On the way, passengers can spot the remains of the locomotive used in a spectacular train wreck that was staged here for the Harrison Ford movie "The Fugitive." The train also runs dinner excursions on Friday and Saturday nights, and for six weeks in winter, its Polar Express delivers children daily from Bryson City to the "North Pole."

Neighboring Sylva, population 5,000, is much bigger than Dillsboro but has fewer shops. It's a pretty town with a traditional main street, and as a Tree City USA, it has 44 species of trees lining its streets. Its much photographed courthouse, built in 1914, looks down on the city from an impressive position atop the highest point in the city.

As it is only a few miles from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, Sylva also attracts college students, particularly on weekend nights. You'll find them often in O'Malley's or the Main Street Bar and Grill.

Sylva's and Dillsboro's proximity to other popular sites in western North Carolina is another plus. Ten scenic waterfalls are situated nearby. It's only nine miles to the Blue Ridge Parkway and 15 miles to the entrance of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the nation's most visited park. And it's just 12 miles to a Harrah's casino.

Western North Carolina's mountains teem with vacation houses, so 80 percent of visitors to this area stay in their own or rental cabins, according to Julie Spiro of the Jackson County Travel and Tourism Authority. Only a handful of chain motels are in the county.

Vacation cabins rent for $85 to $150 per night, depending on size, usually with a minimum-stay requirement. Lists of lodging possibilities, as well as dining and activities, are available from the tourism authority.

IF YOU GO

Getting there

It's about 150 miles from downtown Atlanta to Dillsboro, N.C., less than a three-hour drive.

Information

Jackson County Travel and Tourism Authority, 773 W. Main St., Sylva, NC 28779, 1-800-962-1911, www.mountainlovers.com.