Vacation In Charleston

This is my last vacation post and I meant to post it on Friday but I ran out of time. I have been painting again and there was no time to blog! But, I couldn’t post about our vacation and not finish with some photos of Charleston. If you haven’t ever been there, you must go! It was a wonderful city full of history. We all enjoyed it very much.

Since none of us had ever been there, we started off by going to the visitor center to get our bearings and see what Charleston had to offer us. Here is Jason and his brother studying the map. Yes, they are posing and being silly :)

We all decided we wanted to take a carriage tour so we could learn a little from a guide. It was fun and informative and since it was only an hour long, there was just the right amount of info without being an overload.

All of the above photos were taken from a moving carriage. Not too shabby huh?! The day we went on the carriage ride it was overcast and a little humid. It ended up being the perfect thing to do that day.

We also went on a boat tour to Fort Sumter and the boys toured a retired aircraft carrier. I don’t have many photos of those things (none of the carrier since I wasn’t there) so we will move on. The last day we spent in Charleston, we gave ourselves a walking tour. It was the most beautiful day and so, after eating breakfast, we walked around for a while. We really wanted to see Rainbow Row and the boardwalk and we found both. Here are some photos from our walk:

Most of the houses are privately owned (we learned this on our carriage tour). It’s hard to imagine living in some of these huge homes.

Many of them had private gardens and they would open the gate during the daytime so visitors could take a peek. I liked this little sign that was on a gate.

Sweet reed baskets are a big thing in Charleston. This lady was selling hers on the street and reading her Bible while she sat. I thought it was a sweet moment.

Some of the cemeteries we passed were OLD! There are gravestones from the 1600’s. That is a long time ago :)

Because these houses are historic, they have a bunch of rules to adhere to. They can’t change anything without permission, including paint color and landscaping. I guess it keeps everything authentic but that could be a big process if you live there and like change as much as I do!

I loved some of the address signs. So cute. I wished I could have this one :)

A brick street. Love how picturesque this looks.

I felt like I was craning my neck the whole time. I’m actually surprised I didn’t trip on the sidewalk since I pretty much never watched where I was walking.

Sweet gate to a private garden/patio.

On the boardwalk. Can you imagine having that view?

I loved the brick homes but apparently when they were built, brick was cheap and what they really wanted was stone. Since there isn’t any stone native to Charleston, many times they put a layer on top of the brick to make it look like stone.

Big beautiful houses + palm trees. It doesn’t get much better :)

There weren’t very many cobblestone streets because there isn’t any stone in Charleston (as I said before). This stone would have come all the way from England!

Rainbow row. It was fun to see but I realized that most of the photos I have seen of Rainbow Row were enhanced to make the colors look bolder. Although the houses were different colors, they were a little more subtle than I originally thought.

This isn’t part of Rainbow Row although it looks like it could have been. See the river in the background?

This wasn’t our carriage ride, but you would see these all over downtown. Especially because it was such a nice day.

Pretty interesting walk huh? I enjoyed it!

I just have one last photo to show you. It’s actually from Kiawah Island but I couldn’t resist sharing it because I was so excited when I took it:

I got to see an alligator! It was so cool. There were actually 5 of them sunbathing on the bank of a golf course. I have never seen one outside of a zoo so I was really excited. Have you ever seen an alligator before? If not, head to Kiawah Island!!

And that wraps up our vacation. Tomorrow I should have a regular post for you again. Have a great Monday!!