We might have taken our sweet time in planning out our vacation to Charleston, but you would not have known based on all we were able to see and do in the short time we were there. I’ve never been the kind that likes to show up to a place and figure out what to do once we are there. I like to have a plan, a schedule to ensure I see everything I want or can possibly fit in. Luckily, I’m pretty sure L is the same way. Our honeymoon was not a relax on the beach trip. It was a we have 7 days in London and Paris…GO! kind of trip. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Well, maybe I would have liked to stay in London a few more days…but I always want to stay in London in a few more days…to the point I wouldn’t mind living there for part of the year!
So here is what our itinerary looked like:
“Thursday-
Arrive at 12:40
Leave airport at 1:30-2:00 (lunch?)
Hotel Check in 4:00pm (Drop off bags at front desk if not ready for room)
Historic Old City Market (Open till 6pm)
Shop at the boutiques on King Street (antiques, etc)
Dinner in Historic District
-Hyman’s (215 Meeting Street)-Intersection of Market & close to Pickney (seafood)
Walk the Walled City (starts around Cumberland street)
Holiday Festival of Lights – 5:30-10:00pm
—We were delayed 3 hours getting into Charleston, so we were able to check in right away at our hotel..and luckily we weren’t very impressed with the City Market, so we just swiftly walked through. We moved the shopping on King Street to Monday (even though we really just window browsed).
Friday-
Carriage ride (Tour of historic district) 1 hour; be there at 9 AM
Calhoun mansion – 11am (really Williamson family, site of scenes from the movie The Notebook)
The Battery – walk around
Lunch-
1. East Bay Deli.net (334-H East Bay Street)
Docks Street Theater – self guided tour
Huguenot Church
Heyward Washington – (10-5pm – last tour at 4:30pm)
Edmondston-Alston House – (10 – 4:30pm)
Nathaniel Russell – (10-5pm)
Dinner-
1. Husk restaurant.com (76 Queen St)
2. 82 Queen.com (82 Queen Street)
–It was quite chilly in the morning on our carriage ride, but we had a very informative guide who really gave us some neat history. I was excited to get off and go back to some of the places we had seen for pictures! We were lucky to have hit each of the house tours perfectly, so we didn’t have more than a 10 minute wait and thus, we were able to see all the ones we wanted in one day! I usually have a few options for meals and we found out on our carriage ride tour that Husk was the #1 best restaurant in America right now. So afterwards, I tried to call to make a reservation for lunch or dinner (any time we were in town)..and they were of course..FULL! That’s ok. We tried 82 Queen and absolutely LOVED it! So much so, that we went back our last night! Due to construction work, we were not able to go into the church. They did tell us we could come on Sunday when it would be open for worship (we did come back Sunday, but we did so after the service was held and again we could not get in..dang!) Unfortunately, because most of the homes now belong to a preservation society (and truthfully, I’d much rather they be RESTORED than preserved) we were not allowed to take pictures in many of the homes. It’s a shame, too. So much history and beautify in them! My favorite was the Calhoun house..partly because of the history, but also because of the beautiful, beautiful craftsmanship of the wood! Pocket doors weighing 200 lbs that you could push or pull with 1 finger..wood floors so well designed that no reinforcement is needed for a 500 lb statue sitting on top of it. Now if only the current owner would remove some of his private antique collection so I could see more of the house instead of his “stuff”…wishful thinking 😉 Because this house is privately owned, the owner was actually home during our tour. I wish I had bought a book that had pictures of this place..truly beautiful.
Saturday– Rainy
Breakfast-eat out? Hominy Grill.com (best bkst in town) ~ (207 Rutledge Avenue)
Magnolia plantation – (Plantation and gardens)
Lunch-The Sunflower Café.net (about 4.5 miles from Magnoila, 8 miles from Middleton) on the way to Magnolia (2366 Ashley River Road)
Middleton place and Drayton Hall
Dinner-
1. Home Team BBQ.com (1205 Ashley River Road—back towards Charleston) ~
2. Early Bird Diner.com (1644 Savannah Hwy) ~ (on DDD)
It was nice having a rental car so we could easily go see the plantations. The Magnolia is known for it’s gardens. They were very pretty, but nothing at all like the beautiful gardens of Versailles. I liked Drayton Hall best, as far as the architecture of the home and what remained. Again, they are only preserving what is left, not restoring to original time period. Thus, we can’t touch anything and there is no furniture inside the house. Bummer! We ate at the Early Bird Diner, as I am a fan of Diners Drive-Ins and Dives and this was listed as one of the stops in Charleston. It did not disappointed. And because there is not much to do after government/historic society owned buildings close at 5 pm, we decided to see a movie. The movie you ask?…Lincoln. So apt for our trip in historic Charleston where the first shots of the civil war were fired from on Fort Sumter! Good movie! Go see it. And we lucked out..it was not rainy, just cold and windy. But I had my rain boots on just in case 😉
Sunday-
Fort Sumter tour – harbor cruise and fort tour National Monument (3 hours)
Lunch-in town or at beach?
Morris Island Lighthouse?
Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site
Dinner-82 Queen (again!)
-Again it was a little chilly on the boat, but it was neat to see such an important part of our history. It’s hard to imagine what it looked like back then. I know L enjoyed this part of our trip! Afterwards, we decided to head to Folly Beach and lunch there. After walking out to see the lighthouse, we headed to just about the only restaurant in town and not surprising, it did not disappoint with the food! Yummy! Then we spent a little time walking the beach. I believe L brought home some seashells, too! We had a few hours to kill before our reservation for dinner, so what did we do..we went back to the hotel for a much needed nap!
Monday-
be at airport by 8 AM? Or earlier to drop off car?”
So all in all, we stuck to our schedule quite well. And the food was absolutely incredible! We did not have one bad meal the entire trip. We even had a few hot chocolates to warm us up. One day while we were killing some time, we found a Piggly Wiggly. Yes you read that correctly! Piggly Wiggly. I didn’t realize these still existed. I have always wanted to go in one since I saw Sweet Home Alabama..Reese just makes you want to be a part of the small town life! So I was delighted to find one (and they are still up and running in the deep south!–I’d love one here) and go in one. We also grabbed a few things from another local grocery store to munch on at the hotel..a Harris Teeter. Funny name, but quite clean and the food looked great. Much better than here…can you tell I don’t like our selection of grocery stores in my town!-HA.
We had a really great time on our vacation seeing historic Charleston. We didn’t see Blake or Ryan (dang it) but we did see some awesome old homes! It was harder than I thought to leave Emmie for 5 days and 5 nights, but she sure did have a blast with Grandma and Grandpa, Holly and BitBit! She may not have slept through the night, she may have peed on the rug, and she most certainly wore my parents out, but she was a happy dog while we were gone and that meant the world to me! So thanks to my mom and dad for taking on a third dog and letting her be part of their family for a few days!
Here are some of the pictures from our time in Charleston:
Historic City Market Entrance
I sat here, too!
Me at the Historic City Markets
Everything was still decorated beautifully for Christmas
They had horses and donkeys for our carriage ride
The city uses this old bingo machine to decide which district each carriage will go down so that the same streets and route are not heavily use and populated by carriages. We got district 2, as seen by the red ball!
I love the greenery growing on the buildings!
The architecture is amazing
I loved the architecture of this church
Original road. These stones were used to weigh the ships down to help them dock or something and once ashore, they were thrown over and discarded by the English. The Charlestonians used them to pave their streets. Once England got wind of this, they began taxing the Charlestonians for these stones because they were now considered “building materials.”
Note the ropes on the wire fencing. Informs people that the owner is in shipping.
L on the original road of Charleston
Note the original brick, covered over with plaster and painted. Love that you can still see the history!
The next several pictures are of the exterior and entry of the Calhoun Mansion. If you were a guest, you would enter through the beautiful double doors. If there on business with the man of the house, you entered through a plan door to the right that led to the study only. You knew your place in society and where you were permitted to enter based on how decorative/expensive the room was.
This house was meant to show on-lookers how wealthy he was. If you were in shipping, you had rope detail around your front door-as a signal for others. This man, Mr. Williamson was extremely wealthy in the shipping industry and had roping around every door and window.
If you were considered a “guest,” you would enter the house through these doors.
Note the roping/shipping industry detail
They built porches to make use of the south/west winds as a means of natural air conditioning. I just think they are beautifully designed
The detail in the homes is just stunning. I wish we built homes like this these days.
Again the original brick with the new plaster on top
The furniture quality was impeccable
Note the red cord-acted as a system of notifying the slaves which room they were needed in. Remind anyone of Downton Abbey?!
No pictures were allowed inside
The outside
Now for the historic plantations. I want to go see more southern plantations in other states. I’m hoping they have as much or better architectural character! I’m kinda addicted to big, expensive, detailed homes! –at least looking at them 🙂
The beautiful gardens of the Middleton Place plantation
My handsome hubby taking in the scenery
They buried this statue under the marshes/lake during the civil war so the Union troops couldn’t loot it. So glad they did-she’s a beauty
Huge oak trees in South Carolina
I said HUGE right?!
The exterior of what remains. There use to be a bigger house where the family lived and an east and west side wing (unattached), but the Union troops burned down all the plantations they came across and this was all that remained.
While we were waiting for our tour of the house to begin, I stumbled upon this beauty!
..and I made him my friend 🙂
The Middleton Place Chapel still stood and we were able to go inside. It was neat to see that anyone could worship here..black, white, slave, non-slave.
How would you like to take this out for a spin? So neat that they have a few to show
Note the British influence…their flag symbol can be seen in how the paths come together
stables
On to another plantation…Drayton Hall. My absolute favorite..you’ll see why:
Several different styles of architecture can be seen in the front of the house.
L popping out of the water well! Clearly we had some time to kill 🙂
Me at the back of the house, in the slave quarters
Front drive view..not too shabby!
The view from the back entrance (yes they could arrive by land or sea, so there were 2 formal entrances)
The original Drayton Hall before it was destroyed
They built “fake” doors with brick behind them for symmetry
Where they kept record of their children’s heights
slave stairwell..so they would not be heard or seen
Their double sided stairwell was one of my favorite things about the Hall
I think it’s easy to see why this is my favorite. Such attention to detail.
Here are the pictures from our river taxi and time at Fort Sumter-where the first shots were fired by the Confederates..signaling the start of the civil war.
And our final destination-the lighthouse at Folly Beach:
And that’s all folks!
A Ramble with the Ruperts 