The End of 2014

It was in many respects a year of challenges, and I'm not sorry to see 2014 slide into the rear view mirror.

We've been at home a lot lately, and not "getting out much," so we thought we might as well leave cold northern Virginia and visit Charleston SC during the period between Christmas and New Years.  It was planned as a little four-day, three-night break, and of course a reason to use the airplane.  I was hoping for some really warm weather.

Jasmine House Inn

Commodore Room

So we loaded up the plane on Sunday morning, and flew in nice clear weather -- but  against a headwind -- for almost three hours.  About 500 miles, or ten hours worth of driving on I-95.  Landing at Charleston Executive Airport, we got a taxi into town and evaded the rental car dilemma, which is really a parking dilemma.  Old city centers are not made for modern traffic.  Our inn was Jasmine

House, a large stately structure with a front porch parallel to the street in the center of the historic district.  Our room was very large, with a fireplace and a large bathroom attached.  There were plantation shutters on the windows, but the dark wallpaper made it a bit gloomy unless you opened every shutter.

 Of course we had to stop in at Grady's favorite men's clothing store, Ben Silver, at 149 King Street in the heart of downtown.  The shop was in fact a little smaller than I imagined it to be, but the clerk told me they do most of their business through the catalog.  She also admitted, a little sheepishly, that they do not have a London store as their logo proclaims.  They once had a warehouse in London.

 

We'd never been to Charleston before, and we of course found true what everyone says:  that Charleston is a great city to visit and walk
around, with lots of well preserved Revolutionary War and 1800's houses in the historic district.  We no sooner left our hotel than we came to Market Street, where a large yellow Market Hall  dominates the scene.  It is a Greek Revival-style building consisting of one raised story resting atop a rusticated open ground-level arcade.  Today it says something about the Daughters of the Confederacy accross the front.  People were selling baskets made from saw grass as well as found antiques and okra. The arcade went on for blocks with all manner of handicrafts and a certain amount of tourist schlock.

Okra

We spent most of our first full day just walking and looking, with guidebook and camera in hand.  There were lots of hired walking guides giving tours, as well as the horse drawn carriages each with a guide, but we opted for the DIY version.   You could look around, poke into gardens behind the iron fences, or look over the walls, and the city has a very placid feeling.

Charleston is famous for the homes in the historic the district, defined as "An area roughly bounded by Broad, Bay, S. Battery and Ashley and an area along Church bounded by Cumberland and Chalmers."  Many of the houses narrow on the street footage side, but deep with porches set well above ground level.  Often the porches are accessed only from within the house.

 The town is full of churches too, many dating to the 1600's and often being the first church of a given denomination in what is today's United States.  Here is St. Michael's, the oldest surviving religious structure in Charleston, South Carolina. It is located at Broad and Meeting streets on one of the Four Corners of Law, and represents ecclesiastical law.  The cemetery across from the church had many distinguished South Carolinians buried there.  We also saw the first Scots Presbyterians, first Baptists, first Unitarians, etc.

On many streets houses featured a block on which you could step in order to get astride your horse.  Frequently there was a hitching post nearby for parking your horse.  I kind of wonder if they towed horses that were illegally parked, or maybe that's a characteristic of Southern hospitality that has only recently come into vogue?

Pink House oldest in city

We enjoyed some very fine dining in the famed "Low Country cuisine" restaurants.  In the evenings we ate at Hank's Seafood, FIG, and Magnolias.  While all were excellent, I'd rank them in that order too. There was shopping also, but with the exception of the Ben Silver store (which I just had to see for myself), we avoided going into most of the many clothing, art, antiques, and shoe stores.  We did the National Park Service tour of Fort Sumter -- it turns out to be rather small and unimpressive for a place that started such a big, long, and costly war.  But I learned a lot of history, which usually happens when I get near those park rangers.

Fort Sumter

 The only downside was the weather.  It was beautiful and sunny (72° F) when we arrived on Sunday, but Monday and Tuesday were grey and gloomy, including some light rains.  In fact, few things can be colder than Ft. Sumter in a stiff 40 degree breeze at 4 p.m.  The folks at Charleston Executive Airport were very helpful and got us a taxi into town so that we never even had
a rental car.  We did have  great view of Charleston on departure from KJZI.

If you're really curious, here's a link to several reviews Marcia wrote on Trip Advisor about the places we went and saw -- http://www.tripadvisor.com/members-citypage/TourTroll/g54171

Charleston, SC out the left side as we departed on New Year's Eve