Friday I-Wish-I-Were-There (Charleston, South Carolina)

Welcome to my Friday I-Wish-I-Were-There Blog.

Today I’m headed down South to suck in lungfuls of fresh sea air and the lingering scent of a fascinating history in Charleston, South Carolina.

Highlights.

Walking tour. We visited the City Hall building, which was lovely—polished wood everywhere, chandeliers and portraits of presidents and famous people like Andrew Jackson & George Washington. The Washington one had a funny story about it that Mike told us, which explains the rather big horses' bottom standing behind Washington in the painting. We also had a quick look inside St Michaels, the oldest church in Charleston. It dates back to the 1750's and was a prime target for the British cannons in the Revolutionary war. Amazingly it was never hit. On our walk we also spotted the old Slave Market building, a sobering reminder of Charleston’s history.

The Old Exchange building. Located on East Bay Street by the Harbour we were greeted by staff dressed in period costume. Upstairs was a ballroom where George Washington had danced in 1791. We all then danced on the same floor two hundred and sixteen years later. Mind boggling. I just LOVE this kind of stuff—actually being in the places where amazing people lived their lives and where historic events took place. We went downstairs to the Provost dungeon, which still had some of the original seawall from the mid 1600's! The brick wall was all original and done in the architectural Roman 'Groin' style,very cool!

Charles Towne Landing State Park. First we looked through a really good museum that told of the history of Charles Towne Landing which dates back to 1670. This was where the first settlers of Charleston made their original town. There we saw a reproduction being built of the sailing ship, "The Carolina”, which brought the first settlers to Charles Towne, and we also saw reproductions of cannon, an indentured servant's quarters and a settler's garden. While exploring we came a across a HUGE spider—yes, my very favourite creepy-crawlie. Not. I asked my son to hold up his hand in the photo for size comparison and the crazy kid nearly touched it. I nearly lost my lunch.  Nuff said.

Friendly folk. Staying at a RV park we met some lovely people while we were doing everyday chores like laundry. When my husband went to collect our load from the communal dryers, he was gobsmacked to find two elderly dears happily folding all our laundry for us. They refused to stop until they’d finished and told my husband that they just loved folding laundry. My man, who knows me rather well, managed to say thank you without mentioning that his wife would likely have conniptions if she knew someone was folding her underwear.  But sweet ladies, just the same.

Charleston was such a fascinating southern city that I could have easily spent a week there just reveling in all that history. Maybe next time…

Tracey