road trip recap: charleston, sc (part iii)

We wanted to spend our last day in Charleston exploring the historic downtown.  We woke up with the sun and had iced coffee and pastries at a bistro table on the cobblestoned street.  It was early on a weekday so the place was deserted--we had the city to ourselves!  We walked down East Bay and Rainbow Row and along the Battery, gazing awestruck at all of the amazing historic mansions.  There was a nice breeze off the water so we sat for a bit before continuing on.  Every street we turned onto was lined with beautiful homes.  We wandered through the market, where we bought an OOGLE ("Here in the low country, legend has it that after dark the streets fill with ghosts and goblins roaming about scaring anyone that doesn't have an Oogle to protect them. Oogles may be strange looking little critters, but don't let their size fool you.  They can and will take care of any size ghost or goblin.").  As we were exiting the market we walked past one of those sweetgrass stands that seem to be on every street corner, but this one had a pretty collection of flowers, and K bought me a single sweetgrass rose (so sweet)!  We chatted up the artist a bit and he told us that after seeing Charleston, Savannah (the "little sister") would fail to impress.

We took the noontime carriage tour with the Palmetto Carriage Company.  Our guide was really great, and we learned a lot about Charleston's architectural history (apparently Charleston has one of the largest protected historic districts in the world, second only to Rome!).  When the tour was over we started looking for a place to have dinner, and wound up at the Rooftop Bar at the Verdue Inn, where we had cocktails looking out over a panoramic view of the city and ocean (my white grape vodka martini was divine).  We kind of failed at dinner, driving wayyyyy out of town to the highest-rated pizza place in the area only to find it randomly closed for the evening, but did end up finding another place near our campground for wood-fired goodness.  We were already talking about what we would do when we return...

Next up: Savannah!

road trip recap: charleston, sc (part ii)

Our second day in Charleston was equally lovely.  We got an early start, heading out to Folly Beach to see the Morris Lighthouse as the sun was coming up.  We put our feet in the water, had some breakfast, and basked in the South Carolina sun, and enjoyed the beach until other people started showing up.  We stopped for some Sonic milkshakes on our way across town to Drayton Hall, Magnolia Plantation's shabby chic sister (owned by the same family), and took a tour of the house and grounds, in addition to sitting for a short lecture on slavery in South Carolina (and specifically at Drayton Hall), which was quite interesting.  We both loved Drayton.  It was only preserved, rather than restored and decorated with period furniture, which left it looking romantically delapidated.  We wandered the grounds a bit and then were off once again, out to Mt. Pleasant for a stroll on the beach and a delicious dinner (K had shrimp and grits that basically changed his life) at R.B.'s creekside restaurant, where we were able to watch dolphins playing in the water directly below us.  If we weren't sold on Charleston already, this day would have done it.

road trip recap: charleston, sc (part i)

I'm going to have to break my Charleston pictures into several posts because WE LOVED IT THERE.  We spent four nights camping in a field in James Island, and luckily had beautiful weather the whole time.  Our first day we took our breakfast out to Folly Beach and walked out on the pier.  It was lovely there--sort of a cross between Cape Cod and Key West (which we had yet to visit).  After we were finished gazing at the ocean (even though we're never really finished) we drove out to Magnolia Plantation.  I'd heard, of course, about the famous gardens, but we also wanted to tour our first southern plantation!  The garden was definitely the highlight--I can't get enough of that dramatic Spanish moss (which I learned was called such because it resembled the beards of Spanish explorers, not because it is of Spanish origin).  While strolling through the gardens we also saw some small alligators, peacocks, four large turtles, a crane, and a blue heron.

The house tour was actually kind of a disappointment.  The original house was burned by Union soldiers and was rebuilt, but then that house was also destroyed and the resulting structure was kind of a mashup.  The columns weren't even added until the 1990s (!), and only because the owner got sick of people telling him his plantation didn't look classic enough.  Still, the plantation visit was worth it for the gardens.  When we were finished there we decided to go back to Folly Beach to see the Morris Lighthouse, but when we got there we didn't want to pay to park so we decided to go back in the morning before the street parking was filled.  We had dinner back at the campground and took a stroll over to the public area of the park, where we sat on a swing by the river and watched the sun set before heading back to bed.