Charleston, South Carolina

The skies had cleared this morning as we left Savannah and headed via Hilton Head for Charleston South Carolina. Hilton Head was just a little jog off our route, but we ended up with very little to look at. The entire island has very little visible commerce, all of it hidden behind the forestation that is Hilton Head. Given its tourism popularity, they’ve done a nice job of keeping an extremely natural look on this island. It’s hard to even get a view of the beach. These places on the water were as close as we got.

On the way into Charleston, we stopped at a tourist office and booked a nice hotel in the old part of Charleston and a horse drawn buggy ride for significantly less than we found when we looked on the internet. As usual, we were too early to check in, so off we went on a buggy ride around Charleston.

We started at the market, which primarily serves the cruise ships that dock 100 metres away.

Our buggy driver was Bobby, our horse was Cooper and they led us on a leisurely stroll around old Charleston. There are numerous buggy companies and the routes they take are determined by lottery. As your buggy hits its launch point, you see the lottery balls churning and dropping to reveal the buggy’s course. We lucked out and went down to the Battery, which is probably the area of the most beautiful of all Charleston mansions. Here are but a few.

Following the tour, we checked into the Days Inn, which had a fabulous location in the old city. We immediately headed out again to see some areas our tour didn’t cover. There is in particular, a row of colourful houses on Bay St. that we wanted to visit.

They also seem to like their ghosts here in Charleston, but not with such fervor as in Savannah. There are some interesting graveyards surrounding the old churches.

One of the main consumer products for tourists are baskets made with rice leaves. There is intensive labour involved here, so I guess it’s understandable that the prices of these bowls are astronomical. We gave them a pass.

This is a very picturesque city, with a variety of beautiful settings.

The Cooper River is another busy river and we actually saw the same container ship we saw leaving Savannah yesterday, now leaving Charleston. I guess it was making its way north up the coast. Also parked in the river was an aircraft carrier, which is definitely one of your larger pieces of real estate on the river.

They have done a nice job of maintaining the historic character of this city, but every once in a while someone paid off someone and ended up with a place like this.

For dinner we walked to 82 Queen St. Our dinner consisted of She Crab soup for Dawn and a chicken chowder for me. Main course was a gigantic jambalaya for Dawn and a deep fried osso bucco for me. Sounds a little bizarre, doesn’t it? With a dessert of peach cobbler, we finished another wonderful meal.