NATCHEZ — The hoop skirts have been put away for another year at Twin Oaks Bed and Breakfast as Fall Pilgrimage drew to a close Saturday.

And while Regina Charboneau is looking forward to having her house to herself again, she said that her first Pilgrimage was a great experience.

“I thought it went great,” Charboneau said. “We get such a quality guest in Natchez. People come and they’re really interested in the history here. You’ve won half the battle when they walk in the door.”

One of the younger guests, 6-year-old Cara-Lea, who came with her grandmother Teresa Beggerly from Jackson, even got in on the show by putting on her very own hoop skirt and directing guests around the house.

“I thought she would get tired of it after about 10 minutes but she didn’t,” she said. “She stayed there all day.”

The guests, some from as far away as England and Germany, had a wide variety of interests. Some were taken by the architecture of the house, some by the history and some by the gardens. But Twin Oaks also offered guests something extra — hot biscuits.

“Being a chef, it just seemed only natural that I should give them something to eat on the way out,” Charboneau said.

The tasty treats came with a history of antebellum biscuit making and a discussion of Natchez as the biscuit capital of the world.

And Twin Oaks was not the only house that offered a little something extra. The Stone House gave guests a brief piano concert, while Texada gave visitors lemonade and pralines, Natchez Pilgrimage Tours Director Marsha Colson said.

“The houses on tour attracted a lot of attention and the homeowners did a lot to have interesting stories and interesting artifacts and they did really great research,” Colson said. “It’s like my eyes were opened again to make me realize what we really have to offer here, which is pretty extraordinary.”

Colson said she was also impressed by the seven new houses that joined Fall Pilgrimage — Greenlea, Twin Oaks, Oak Hill, Rip-Rap, The Stone House, Pleasant Hill and The Gardens.

While the exact number of visitors will not be known until November, Colson said she thinks they had a very good crowd, especially considering the high price of gas and the financial crisis.

“We had some really good days with good crowds and some days with crowds that were lower than we would have liked,” she said.

Unless something changes, Colson expects to the new houses to return to next year’s fall lineup, she said. And Charboneau hopes to return, also.

“I now have the dress and the hoop skirt so I might as well use it,” Charboneau said.