Friday, July 23, 2010

Historic Downtown Charleston, SC....OH WOW!

We spent a couple of days in historic downtown Charleston, just looking at the lovely old homes, eating a lot of great food and soaking up all that this wonderful town had to offer.

Our first thing to do was eat lunch, the first day we got there around lunch time and had to find somewhere wonderful to eat.  We went to this place...



Fleet Landing is an old Navy pier that's been turned into a restaurant and has GREAT food!
I got this....



This whole shrimp platter was $7.95! (and OH so yummy)

When we were ordering the guy was telling us
all the fresh catches of the day etc and I'm thinking,
"you're really wasting your time telling us all that, cause
no one in my family is going to eat shark"! LOL
It was time for all of us to order and what do you
think Lincoln orders???!!
"I'd like to have the black tipped shark please".
WHAT! He didn't just order shark..well yes he did!
Here was his order....



Looks pretty good huh?
But what does it taste like??



apparently it tastes like chicken...
that was the consensus...and yes I did take a bite!
I guess it's better to bite shark, than to have a shark bite you. 
:-)
(oh and the fresh catch of the day was only $10 bucks!)

After the shock of eating shark, we decided to do something fun.
We found this place....




Yep, we took a carriage ride down the historic parts of Charleston.
The only thing missing was my civil war era dress!
:)


The picture is a little dark, but the guy on the upper left, was our driver..
he was super funny!

I'll now show you all the pics I took while on this lovely carriage ride...
So hold on!



This was one of the first homes we saw...
it was for sale. You wanna guess how much?

Try $4.3 million dollars!
Guess you have to have money to live in downtown Charleston.
(more money than I've ever seen)



I loved how the trees went up between each window..
and that house is the color of my front door!
(but my purple-y color is a little darker...not so washed out)



Just thought this one was pretty!



This house belongs to the owner of all the
Piggly Wiggly grocery stores.
It was under renovation, but if you look closely
you can see little concrete piggies out front!
(one is right under the bottom of the ladder)
:)





We rode down by the Ashley River too!



I LOVED this tree!!!
(the house isn't too bad either! lol)



Ok, see the big black washers on the sides of the building?
They are all over the buildings around there...they served a purpose.
Apparently they had a lot of earthquakes and they would drill
through the houses and put large steel rods through and hold them together
with the HUGE washers and equally HUGE nuts.
Who knew!



This was one of my favorite things we kept seeing
repeatedly throughout the ride...
homes with ivy on the fronts of their steps, or the whole house!
So pretty!



This fence has wooden pickets in it now,
but our guide said all the fences used to have iron in them before the war.
The soldiers took the iron fence parts from between the columns, and promised that when the
war was won, they would replace all their iron in their fences...
Well guess who didn't win the war and didn't get their iron back?!
I'm sure they weren't too happy....
but the South will rise again! (according to the locals) :)

After our carriage ride we saw LOTS of houses on foot.
It was actually more fun that way because we could stop and enjoy every little nuance of the homes.
(much to the chagrin of the owners, I'm sure) lol



On our walk we saw this wonderful pineapple fountain...
it was in River Park.

Here's another fountain...
everyone was allowed to get inside these fountains and play!






This is inside the actual park...so soothing!
I could have stayed in this area all day...the river was on the left....

See...




I fell in love with all the cobblestone streets!~



The cobblestone in the top of this picture is the oldest street in Charleston.
They used to say if you were pregnant to just take a carriage ride down that street
and you would go into labor. :)



This plaque talks about Rainbow Row, a row of homes
that are painted all different rainbow colors...
oh how lovely!
Wait till you see!!











I took this picture through someones gate..
Here is what is looked like when you stepped back........



How dreamy!



Crepe Myrtles are EVERYWHERE....
and I was so glad, they make me smile!
:)



The iron work (the ones that they soldiers didn't take lol) was so
LOVELY!
Look at that little balcony on the house!



More iron work and such a pretty porch!



This looked like something out of the Secret Garden.



I wanted to go in there SO bad, but I didn't... after all someone lived there.
:)



More ironwork and washers.



I took this photo for the window box flowers alone!
Just gorgeous!
Oh and look how clean the streets are..they're all
like that!





sigh..... so pretty.



Aren't they all just gorgeous!



This is called The Oaks...
it's a steak house.
If you look closely, you can tell the columns
out front are leaning to the right.
You can REALLY tell in real life, the pic doesn't do the leaning justice!



Look at the date on the gate...it's amazing
to me that all these places have lasted so many years and they're still beautiful!



I just loved this portico...makes me want one!



Someone must be very well off to live in this one..cause it has land to it too!



This is Market Street.
There are about three of these long buildings and they are
FULL of just about anything you might want to buy!
Click on the picture and see if it will get bigger..there's a painting on the building.



See the guy in the upper right corner of the photo?
He is an older black gentleman and he sits there and handmakes
these beautiful baskets all day long.
Such craftsmanship!



This is inside one of the markets.



One of the carriages we rode in..
only ours had a horse, not a mule leading.
:)



If you ever go to Charleston this is a must stop..
See the store with the red awning?
It's called River Street Sweets and the pralines there are divine!
They make a thick caramely based goo and cover tons of pecan in it.
Oh my goodness!!! You can go to riverstreetsweets.com and order your own!
I had to go to that place twice! (and brought some home too!)

Well that's about it for downtown Charleston.
I took tons more photos, but I thought these gave you the jest of the place without
taking two hours out of your life looking at pictures!

Stay tuned for our last leg of our vacation..
THE BEACH!

Hope you guys have a great week!~
Blessings and Hugs
Missy

I'm linking this to:
Show & Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

6 comments:

Crystal Rose Cottage said...

Good Morning Missy! Charleston looks like a wonderful place to visit! We visited Savannah the end of Feb and it kind of reminds me of that. I love Savannah so I know I would love Charleston. I am enjoying your tour...tomorrow the beach! I have been out getting outdoor stuff(watering) done early since the heat is going to be horrendous today. Tomorrow meeting the Ohio bloggers!( I may have already told you that). Have a great day and weekend ahead!~xx Patti

Katie Olthoff said...

love your pics. Brings back so many memories. We honeymooned in Charleston, and then went back the next year. It is my favorite city in the world, and I'm so sad that we can't go back, because we're STUCK on our farm for at least the next few years! I have to live vicariously through people like you. :)

Victoria said...

Wow, what a gorgeous area that is. Your photo's are wonderful! Those homes are amazing...pricey tho!

Robyn said...

OH MY! MISSY!!! I just poured over your photos and loved every. single. one! Thank you for sharing, I'm dying to go there! SO VERY LOVELY! I'm glad you had a good time! We went to Lancaster, PA today and had breakfast and did more back to school shopping at the outlets there. Again, we spent too much money! LOL! BUT VERY FUN!

Susan said...

Isn't Charleston just the most wonderful town!! It is so beautiful!! I live in Myrtle Beach and drive up there ever now and then!!

summersundays-jw said...

Love your pictures. My sisters & I are planning a trip there soon so love reading about it. Can't wait! Jan

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