Cha-Cha-Cha-Charleston, SC

After exploring Savannah we headed a couple of hours north to Charleston, SC. The thing I loved most about Charleston was the French Quarter. It was a huge part of the city that was fully restored with tree lined cobblestone streets. Usually there are a few blocks of homes or a few blocks of downtown that are restored in older cities, but in Charleston there is a huge area of ONLY beautifully restored and kept up huge antebellum mansions, homes, and businesses. No skyscrapers allowed! It was interesting to see so many mansions stacked on top of each other. There was so little room in between the mansions that neighbors could easily see into each others houses. Since we are working on fixing up our home it was fun to be surrounded by so many houses that are already restored. Here are some pictures from all around Charleston:

Since Charleston works hard to keep to keep everything historic there are a plethora of carriages to ride in. We decided to take a tour of the city in one - this is on the way to Charleston Harbor.

Tom's favorite part of Charleston Harbor was all the fancy cars that were parked there. Across the street from the Harbor were huge homes with lots of exotic cars parked on the street as few of the packed in mansions have garages.

There were a lot of water fountains in the South and also a lot of Pineapple motifs. At the turn of the century the pineapple was the international symbol of hospitality. Back then the host would put a pineapple on the mantle to show that guests were welcome. When the host was ready for people to go they'd take the pineapple into the kitchen - as a way of telling people it was time to go. I love that!

This is Old City Market where the big thing was handmade Saw Grass Baskets. You can even watch the women make the baskets. The tradition has been handed down from generation to generation originating in Africa.

Another of the neat things about Charleston are all the Plantations you can tour. We went to Magnolia Plantation outside of Charleston which was first started in 1676. This was a rice plantation who's hay day was before the cotton gin was put into use.

Drive up to the Plantation

Drayton Family House

View from the House

The Plantation also did a good job at making sure that the slaves - their lives and struggles were not forgotten. Most slaves to this area were bought specifically for their knowledge of rice cultivation and therefore were an essential part of the plantation as well as advances in streamlining production at the time. Above are the restored slave quarters - which housed around 16 slaves per cabin. I'm pretty sure one cabin could fit in my living room.

Below are some pictures of where the rice used to be grown on the plantation. Since rice is grown in flooded plains most of the plantation is swampy but beautiful.

There were also a lot of peacocks roaming around. It was pretty cool - when I'm rich and famous I think I may want peacock wandering around my front yard!=)

They also had a little zoo at the plantation which wasn't that exciting but there was an owl there who was trying to get a good look at something and was turning it's head almost 360 degrees. I had never seen anything like it before but thought it was so cool I'll share it with you!

I think my favorite thing of the whole trip was the evening we spent on the Schooner Pride. The only boats I've been on are ferries and the paddle boat in Savannah - so it was neat to be on a sail boat. This is an 84 foot tall schooner modeled after the old trading schooners that used to frequent Charleston long ago.

Tom even got to get in on the action of hoisting the sails.

Below are some of my favorite pictures from the boat:

Cooper River Bridge

Tom enjoying the water

Sunset on the Schooner Pride:

The last thing on our to do list was to visit the beaches around Charleston. Our first stop was Folly Beach then Isle of Palms. Folly Beach on Folly Island was a great little beach town. Isle of Palms was more of a residential area with amazing homes right on the beach - we wouldn't mind living there during the summer!

Driving on the Cooper River Bridge

Folly Beach

On the long drive home we stopped to check out Myrtle Beach, SC. It was another great beach town but more commercial. Here are some of my favorite shots from there:

All in all it was a great trip, but as always it's good to be home!