Charleston, Days 1 and 2

Charleston, SC– days 1 and 2

So, the husband and I decided to save a little money this year and skip out on the larger vacay we had hoped to take this year, pushing that off til 2011. Instead, we decided to do two smaller getaways, a long weekend this summer and a long weekend after Christmas. For the summer trip, we decided to head to Charleston, South Carolina since I hadn’t been in years (and even then it was only a day trip) and he had never been. I’ve also been jonesing for a beach trip this summer and this was as close as I could talk the hubs into.

On Wednesday, we left bright and early to head down to SC. We stopped in Greenville (only a little out of the way, ha) to have lunch with my brother-and-sister-in-law. We did get to see their new house for the first time, so even though it was just a quick visit, it was nice to be able to see them.


walking towards the Battery in Charleston

Onwards to the coast! After about 8 hours total in the car, we got to Charleston around 5:30 pm and found our way to our hotel. We stayed at the Anchorage Inn on Vendue Street which is the perfect location, near shopping, eating, and sightseeing. The hotel is a former 19th century cotton warehouse across from what is now Waterfront Park. We had one of the front rooms with a big window looking out on the street. The hotel itself has lots of character, and we enjoyed our stay. Small minuses– the bathroom is tiny, the turndown service they offer doesn’t actually exist, and the included breakfast leaves a little to be desired. The pluses– the location, the ambiance, free wine and cheese in the afternoons, free sherry in the evenings, bath and body works toiletries.

Since we arrived semi-late that evening, we did just a little walking around, exploring some neighboring streets and Waterfront Park. We ate dinner at Sermet’s Corner on King Street. I’m pretty sure that this was the husband’s favorite meal of the trip. It was definitely very good! After a late walk on the pier-area of the park, we turned in early to get a good start the next day.

DAY 2

We were up bright and early to see some of the sights that Charleston has to offer. We started at the Old Slave Mart which was very close to the hotel. While it’s an informative place and shares some important pieces of history, I was slightly disappointed by the fact that you see very little of the actual building since most of the walls, etc are covered up by the museum’s poster-like exhibits.


street view from the carriage tour

After seeing the Slave Mart, we headed up a couple of blocks to Anson Street. There we purchased tickets for a carriage ride with Old South Carriage Tours– they’re the ones who wear Confederate uniforms (tho I’m not sure why.) The tour lasted about an hour and we were on route 3. For those, unfamiliar with Charleston carriage tours, there are three routes that the carriages are able to take and your carriage is assigned a particular route each time it goes out in order to cut down on traffic backups. It’s an interesting system that seemed to work pretty well. Our guide, Mike, was enthusiastic and entertaining. I do feel like we learned a lot of information and gained a new perspective on Charleston history. I do believe my favorite part of the tour was when Mike was pointing out the blue that many houses had painted on their piazzas, doors, or shutters… in pointing it out, he asked us what color blue we believed that was. Someone shouted out, “Carolina blue.” Without missing a beat, Mike replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Carolina’s colors are red and black.” Snort. Mike did have on his proud red and black University of South Carolina t-shirt visible under his uniform. (p.s. The blue is called haint blue.)

After the carriage tour, we headed up to the Aiken-Rhett house to take a tour of the home which was originally a private residence built in 1817 for a former SC governor. On that tour, you get an individual audio tour which takes you through the house and outbuildings, including slave areas, stables, and carriage houses. The home, which was held by the original family until the 1970s, is completely unrestored. Rather than being restored, it has been preserved as it stands. There are many pieces of original furniture that were handed down within the family, and it really is amazing to see the layers of history in the decorations of the home. In some rooms, original wallpaper and wall fixtures can still be seen. I would highly recommend this tour for anyone even remotely interested in history!


Aiken-Rhett home

After having finished up the Aiken-Rhett house by around 2:oo, we decided to spend the remainder of the (very warm) afternoon at one of the local beaches. We headed out to Folly Beach after grabbing a couple of quick slices of pizza from a little pizza place in Rainbow Market. Folly was about a 30 minute drive from Charleston but we made it to the beach with no trouble. I was really surprised too by the lack of people. Don’t get me wrong now, there were tons of people, but everyone was so spread out that it didn’t feel crowded at all! I also loved the fact that there were virtually no high rises within eyesight. It was just a pretty beach area with lots of families out enjoying the sunny weather!

After playing around in the ocean, FAILing a few times in battles against the waves, and laying out on the beach, we headed back to Charleston for dinner at SNOB. SNOB (or Slightly North of Broad) is only about a block away from the Anchorage Inn and seemed to be quite the popular place. Helpful hints – make reservations and wear something decent (think khakis/polo shirts for guys, nice slacks and top/sundress for the ladies). I’m glad I did some research on the restaurant scene so we had no trouble getting in to where we wanted to go and never felt out of place. Dinner at SNOB was probably my favorite meal we had while it town. The service was excellent, very attentive. The food was fantastic– I could have eaten that banana cream pie every day for the rest of the trip!

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for a quick change and then over to Waterfront park to meet with our ghost walk tour guide. We did a walk with the Ghosts of Charleston. Patrick seemed pretty pleased with it, but I thought it was a little skimpy with the stories. Our tour did take us inside the Unitarian Church's graveyard (which is closed after dark) which was interesting if only because it is a stunning graveyard (as odd as that may sound.) Our guide was also a little... off. He was even kind of rude to a couple of people who were trying to get information from him early on, but not all guides can be overly nice, one supposes. After the tour, it was pretty much off to the hotel for sleep after a long day!

decisions, decisions

Since the husband and I totally bailed on a good summer vacay this year, I’m already planning my options for next year. Right now, the leading contenders are a 3 week tour of England and Scotland OR a 3 week tour of France. I’ve been to both London and Paris (both with a couple of day trips outside the respective cities) before, but the husband has not been to any of the aforementioned countries. It’s just hard to really decide between the two! If anyone has thoughts either way, I’m good with hearing them. Right now, it’s basically coming down to my love of Scottish castles and lore vs my love of French cuisine and wine. … But that totally oversimplifies everything, ha! Anyhoo… Just thought I would share one of the ever-so-many things on my mind today.

if you'd like to vote in the poll regarding this decision then head over the post on the main blog: http://quspork.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/decisions-decisions/

another weekend in d.c.

so the husband had to be in d.c. for work last weekend. since it was over my birthday, i decided to tag along for fun!

we stayed at the embassy suites on 22nd. it's an ok hotel-- more for the business traveller than for a leisure tourist. we had some issues with our toilet and the remote controls for the tv don't work very well. you have to pay (thru the nose) for Internet service in the room and the in-house gym was (i swear to god) 80 degrees when i went in to work out. it's clean tho and there is free breakfast plus drinks in the evening. so while it might not be my first choice, it works for a moderate hotel.

for my birthday, the husband surprised me tickets to see the washington capitals play on saturday night against the phoenix coyotes. we had awesome seats, and i had a really great time. especially since the caps won 4 - 2!

as far as sight seeing this time around, while the husband was off to work during the day i wandered over to georgetown to look around. i love taking a book to the park behind the old stone house and reading in nice weather, and this weekend was pretty lovely as far as winter weather in d.c. goes. georgetown is mostly shopping and eating. i really didn't do much in way of shopping as i can't really afford the higher end stuff which is what you'll find here. i did peek in a couple of antique shops. again looking at things i couldn't afford, but i do love old furniture and artwork.

for dinner, we did try martin's tavern one night. this a small bar/restaurant on wisconsin ave. that serves typical pub food in a quaint atmosphere. it's claim to fame is that it's been around for over 75 years and has served every president since truman. supposedly jfk proposed to jackie o. in one of the booths there as well. dinner was pretty good. i had the shepard's pie and the husband had the chicken parmesan. both tasted pretty good and the price wasn't terrible for d.c. dining.

on the husband's day off, we headed to the national geographic museum to see the terra cotta warriors exhibit from china. that was really neat. they have about a dozen or so of the (possibly) 7,000 warriors on view. i learned some interesting information and really enjoyed seeing the exhibit. afterwards we headed over the national archives since neither of us had ever been. we really only visited the rotunda, but again, we enjoyed the exhibit. i had no idea that the u.s. had an original copy of england's magna carta. it was really interesting to read some of the information regarding the declaration of independence and the constitution, as well. the great thing about visiting on a tuesday afternoon in january too was that there were very few people in the archives, so we could really take our time visiting. after that, we still had some time to kill before heading back to the hotel, so we headed over to the national museum of the american indian which i had been asking to visit for a few months. honestly, i was a little disappointed with the american indian museum though. the layout of exhibits is somewhat confused and odd. also while they have an large collection of artifacts from different eras and areas, the artifacts are often poorly labeled and lumped together with too many items. in the one area i was probably most interested in, one that showcased carvings and arts from various tribes and times, everything (and i mean everything) is placed in a huge glass showcase and they have two flip books on either side of the case where you can look up the artifacts to see when and where they came from. that's just far too difficult. you spend so much time trying to figure out which artifact is which and it's really just frustrating. it's unfortunate that a museum that has such interesting stories to tell doesn't have them displayed in a more accessible manner.

now my favorite part of this trip were my birthday dinner and post-birthday lunch, both at restaurants by top chef contestants! for dinner, we went to art and soul, owned by top chef masters contestant art smith and for lunch the following day, we drove to frederick, md to eat at volt run by this season's top chef runner up, bryan. i'll post reviews about both in the next post!