Charming Charleston

Welcome to Charleston, a port city in South Carolina. It is known for its cobblestone streets, horse-drawn carriages and antebellum houses. The heroine of the classic novel “Gone With the Wind” Scarlett had relatives in this city and simply adored it.

Waterfront Park stretches for over 1,000 ft. along the water and you can enjoy lovely views of Charleston Harbor. As you walk along there are old-fashioned park benches to rest on and double swings face the harbor. You can admire the sailboats and large ships.

You’ll find many fountains here among them the Pineapple Fountain which is lit up at night. There are beautiful seasonal flower gardens.

Middleton Place Plantation is a beautiful plantation with the honor of having America’s oldest landscaped gardens. There are landscaped terraces, hedged galleries, and pools. The grounds were created in 17th-century European design. The gardens bloom all through the year with rare camillias in wintertime and azaleas in the spring. Taking a tour of the 1755 house you will find out about four generations of Middletons and their slaves. You can see period furniture, silver, rare books, porcelain, and portraits.

The Plantation Stable yards demonstrate life outside of the house with costumed interpreters showing different trades such as blacksmithing, pottery, carpentry, cooperage, and weaving.

Magnolia Plantation and Gardens are America’s oldest publicly accessed gardens and first opened to the public in 1870. Here you’ll also find the nation’s last large-scale Romantic-style garden.

Visitors can take a tour of the house, visit an antebellum cabin, take a boat tour, see exhibits, and for children a nature center and petting zoo.

South Carolina Aquarium is home to birds, land-dwelling animals, plants, and reptiles as well as creatures of the sea. There are daily interactive shows like Shark Shallows where you can touch sharks and rays. Visitors can take a look at animal care at the Sea Turtle Hospital. It is the only hospital for sick and injured sea turtles in South Carolina.

The best-loved resident here is Caretta, a 220-pound loggerhead sea turtle, living in the Great Ocean Tank.

The Old Slave Mart Museum is housed in the building where slaves were once auctioned before the Civil War. Visitors can take a self-guiding tour with signage that explains the history and gives personal accounts of slaves, artifacts, and audio and visual exhibits.

A block from there you’ll find the Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon with costumed guides who relate the history of pirates and patriots who were once imprisoned here.

Patriots Point is located just across the Charleston Harbor. This is where you can board the USS Yorktown. This is a huge vessel that was the tenth aircraft carrier to serve in the United States Navy. It received the Presidential Unit Citation and earned 11 battle stars for service in WW II as well as 5 battle stars for service in Vietnam. She was the vessel chosen to recover the Apollo 8 astronauts and was in the 1944 documentary “The Fighting Lady”.

The vessel is now retired to Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum. At this place, you can also tour aircraft and submarines, and see maritime exhibits.

Boone Hall Plantation is one of America’s oldest working plantations. It was built in 1681 and is best known for its moss-draped, three-quarter mile Avenue of Oaks and for preserving original slave cabins. At the Boone Hall Farm Market, you can purchase fruit, berries, and vegetables.

The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge or Ravenel Bridge is a well-loved landmark that stretches across the Cooper River. It joins downtown Charleston to Mount Pleasant. This bridge was built to withstand in excess of 300 miles per hour wind and a 7.4-scale earthquake. There are multiple traffic lanes and a bicycle-pedestrian path known as Wonders’ Way.

Drayton Hall is the oldest un-restored plantation house in America which is still open to the public. There are guided tours of the house. The interiors have been untouched and you can see how it all looked in the 18th century. It was one of the few plantation houses to survive the Civil War. There is an African-American cemetery which is among the oldest such cemeteries in the nation still in use.

Fort Sumter National Monument

The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, at Fort Sumter when the Confederates pummeled the federal fort in Charleston Harbor. The ruins are well preserved. National Park Rangers tell visitors the story of the fort and how it helped shape history. Visitors ride to the island by boat.

The Charleston Museum is known as “America’s First Museum” and was founded in 1773. There are permanent exhibits with displays of Native Americans and early settlers in the Low Country History Hall. The Early Days Gallery has collections of 19th-century world travelers, an Egyptian mummy and case, and Greek and Roman antiquities.

The Nathanial Russell House dating from 1808 is among America’s most important neo-Classical homes. It is known for its free-standing, three-story staircase and ornate plasterwork. It is furnished with fine and decorative art and is also known for its lovely gardens.

The Aiken-Rhett House dates from 1820. It remained in the same family for 142 years and later became a museum.

The Calhoun Mansion represents a different era from the Historic Charleston Foundation’s antebellum homes. This is an 1876 Italianate mansion with Gilded Age decor. There are 30 main rooms that have outstanding collections of decorative arts of the late 19th-century era. Behind the mansion are formal English gardens.

The Battery and White Point Garden is the promenade along the seawall by the Ashley and Cooper Rivers where they meet and form the Charleston Harbor became a public garden in 1837. Visitors can see historic mortars and cannons and a Confederate monument. From the gardens, you can have great views of Fort Sumter and Charleston Harbor.

Charleston has many historic churches. Among them, the most interesting is the brownstone Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. This is a neo-Gothic structure that was built to replace the original lost in a fire. The pews are carved from Flemish oak and three original altars are made of white marble. There are impressive stained glass windows as well.

Michael’s Episcopal Church is a National Historic Landmark dating from 1751. It is known for its four stained glass windows by the Tiffany Company of New York and for the cedar pew where George Washington sat in 1791.