2 Days, 1 Night in Charleston, SC
You haven’t experienced Southern charm until you’ve visited the Cultural Capital of the South.
By Stacy Tillilie
Take a tapestry of well-preserved Colonial, Antebellum and Victorian architecture and manicured gardens along tree-lined cobblestone streets. Thread through eclectic boutique-style shops and top-rated restaurants serving Low Country cuisine. Edge it with miles of clean sandy beaches. Then wrap it all in Revolutionary and Civil War history, and you have Charleston, South Carolina, the Cultural Capital of the South.
Experiencing the beauty and vibrancy of modern-day Charleston—which sits on the coast about halfway between Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head Island—you might find it difficult to imagine that the city was nearly destroyed many times throughout its more than 300-year history by fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and wars. In fact, it was here, in Charleston Harbor at Fort Sumter, that the first shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861. Less than four years later, in February 1865, Union General William Sherman traversed the Savannah River aiming fire not at Charleston but Columbia, declaring that Charleston was “a mere desolated wreck...hardly worth the time to starve it out.”
It didn’t take long for the Holy City to rise from the ashes—again and again—rebuilding, repurposing and reinventing itself while preserving its past. Today Charleston thrives as one of the most-beloved cities in the U.S., earning accolades from readers of such publications as Condé Nast Traveler, Southern Living and Travel + Leisure, whose readers recently voted Charleston the fourth-best city in America in its World’s Best Awards.
Most travelers come for the history and linger a little longer for the food, attractions, beaches, shopping and Southern hospitality. They especially come in droves in late May for the annual Spoleto Festival USA, a 17-day arts extravaganza that’s the sister event to the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleta, Italy. (The upcoming festival is slated May 28-June 3, 2010.) Crowds also arrive every spring and fall for historic home and garden tours, as well as during the Christmas season when the city gets decked out in its holiday best.
But Charleston’s relatively mild temperatures—with average highs somewhere in the 60s and 70s in fall, winter and spring—make most any time a good time to visit. If you go, you’ll find many compelling reasons to stay. But if you only have a couple days and a night, we offer some suggestions on how to get a feel for what makes up the fabric of life in enchanting Charleston.
Day 1: Friday
Walking a Mile Through History
Charleston is known as a walkable city, with one of the best walks being the Museum Mile on and around Meeting Street. Extending from the Charleston Visitor Center to the Nathaniel Russell House, this stretch offers the motherlode of attractions, taking you past more than a dozen museums, historic homes, churches, public buildings and parks.
Along the way, don’t miss America’s first museum: the Charleston Museum, exploring the region’s cultural and natural history with exhibits ranging from Civil War artifacts to a whale skeleton. The Confederate Museum is another must-see, featuring flags, uniforms, swords and other memorabilia, as is the Gibbes Museum of Art, depicting life in the Lowcountry through painting, portraiture, sculpture, photographs and more. Also nearby is South Carolina’s oldest public building: The Powder Magazine, built circa 1713. And a somber reminder of the past can be found at the Old Slave Mart Museum, once the site of slave auctions that now houses exhibits interpreting the stories of enslaved African Americans and the city’s role in the slave trade.
Architecture aficionados will also want to take time to tour sites such as the Heyward-Washington House, known as Charleston’s Revolutionary War House, built in 1772; the grand Federal-style Nathaniel Russell House, completed in 1808 and featuring a free-flying staircase; the circa 1818 Aiken-Rhett House, an urban villa that has remained essentially unchanged—contents and all—since 1858; and the Joseph Manigault House, Charleston’s Federal-style Huguenot House built in 1803, portraying the life of a rich rice-planting family. And if you’re a fan of fiction, pause at Cabbage Row, a section of Church Street that served as the inspiration for Catfish Row in DuBose Heyward’s Porgy.
From Mansions to Monuments
At the conclusion of the Museum Mile, continue a few blocks to The Battery, a picture-postcard promenade at the convergence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. Here, you can ogle at the waterfront mansions, watch the boats sail by and, in the distance, see Fort Sumter (when standing at the point or on the Cooper River side). You can also explore Civil War displays of cannons and weapons in the waterfront park of White Point Gardens, commonly called Battery Park. The tree-canopied park is as peaceful as it is scenic, making it a popular spot for weddings—and hard to believe that it was once the site of the city’s gallows.
Heading on East Bay Street, you’ll notice the 19th-century Edmondston-Alston House, where, from the piazzas, General Beauregard watched the bombardment of Fort Sumter in 1861. Continue several blocks to the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon, completed in 1771, where Americans were imprisoned during the Revolutionary War. Today, it’s a National Historic Landmark, considered to be among the top three most historically important buildings of Colonial times.
A Lowcountry Lunch
By now, you will have more than earned a bountiful Lowcountry lunch, and the many restaurants dotting East Bay Street are sure to reward your appetite. A local favorite is Magnolias, whose chef, Donald Barickman, is often credited with starting the city’s restaurant renaissance in 1990. Famous for food with a “down South flavor” and “uptown presentation,” Magnolia’s uses fresh, local ingredients for dishes ranging from Down South Egg Rolls to Lowcountry Bouillabaisse. Sandwich lovers may want to try the Fried Po’ Boy, fried shrimp or oysters served inside a hoagie roll, or the Carolina Hot Brown, oven-roasted turkey, bacon, tomato and Swiss cheese served open face. (Note: The dress code for men includes sleeved shirts.)
Royal Shopping on King Street
Heading back toward the heart of downtown, walk along King Street (which runs parallel to Meeting Street) for the scenery—and especially the shopping. The SoHo of Charleston, King Street is lined with everything from upscale big-name retailers (think Sak’s Fifth Avenue and Gucci) to small boutique-style shops with owner-operators welcoming you at the door. Block after block, antique shoppers will discover a treasure-trove of fascinating finds, from estate jewelry, silver and china to furniture, lighting fixtures and artwork. When you reach Market Street, hang a right and continue to Old City Market (also home to The Confederate Museum), an open-air marketplace built in 1841, where Gullah craftswomen weave and sell handmade sweetgrass baskets, carrying on the legacy of a traditional West African art.
Sophisticated Fare With a Southern Flair
City Market is also home to a handful of restaurants, including the Peninsula Grill at the Planters Inn, with an atmosphere reminiscent of fine dining in the first half of the 20th century: dark wood booths, velvet-trimmed walls and Lowcountry artwork. (Outdoor dining in a courtyard setting is available April through October.) Chef suggestions on the menu of contemporary Southern fare include Grilled Peach Glazed Jumbo Gulf Shrimp, Sautéed North Carolina Mountain Trout and Pan Roasted Muscovy Duck Breast. Whatever you order, be sure to leave room for the Ultimate Coconut Cake, a light 12-layer cake based on Executive Chef Robert Carter’s grandmother’s recipe. (Reservations are highly recommended.)
A Posh Place to Sleep
Just a cobblestone’s throw from City Market, smack-dab on Meeting Street, the Charleston Place Hotel offers elegant accommodations and quintessential Southern hospitality. The hotel features 18th-century styling galore—lots of chandeliers and mahogany—as well as modern amenities, including a full-service spa, rooftop pool, upscale boutiques and three restaurants.
Day 2: Saturday
A Pleasant and Patriotic Morning
You can’t leave Charleston without taking a short ferry ride to Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began. Most visitors to the Fort Sumter National Monument depart from downtown Liberty Square, which houses a National Park Service interpretive education center presenting Fort Sumter’s history and related Civil War exhibits.
But for a more scenic option—and one that gets in your morning workout—you can also go by way of walking or biking the Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge (also called the Cooper River Bridge), about a two-and-a-half-mile-long cable-stayed suspension bridge with a bike/pedestrian path. (Electric bike rentals are also available.) The bridge connects to Mount Pleasant, a charming historic village where you can catch a ferry ride to Fort Sumter from the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum.
The world’s largest museum of its kind, Patriots Point showcases 25 aircraft displays, including the 888-foot aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, the destroyer USS Laffey (now closed due to maintenance work), the cutter USCGC Ingham and the submarine USS Clamagore. Also on-site are the Congressional Medal of Honor Museum and the Cold War Submarine Memorial.
Departing from Patriots Point, the ferry takes you on a 30-minute narrated cruise on the Charleston Harbor to Fort Sumter National Park, where you can spend about an hour exploring the Fort Sumter Museum with exhibits telling the story of the fort’s construction, the events leading to the battle and the actual bombardment. You can also browse through the museum’s small bookstore and listen to ranger history talks.
Once back at Patriots Point, fuel up for your walk or bike back over the bridge with a quick hot C.P.O Galley Lunch—ringing up at only $8.50 (at press time)—onboard the USS Yorktown in the carrier's C.P.O. Mess. The mess is open seasonally, April through November. (Groups can make reservations year-round.)
Plantations, Preserved
Once you’ve packed for home, make a final beeline to the Ashley River Road National Scenic Byway, less than a half-hour’s drive from downtown, to visit National Historic Landmark plantation estates that serve as virtual time capsules of a bygone era.
First stop: Drayton Hall, a pre-Revolutionary War plantation home built circa 1738. Sitting on a 125-acre parcel of land shrouded in age-old trees, Drayton Hall is America’s oldest preserved plantation house open to the public and the oldest-surviving example of Georgian-Palladian architecture in the U.S. Take a guided tour of the home and grounds, including visiting an African American cemetery, revealing seven generations of families who lived here.
Just two-and-a-half miles away, you’ll come to another site founded by the Drayton family: Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, a 17th-century estate that houses America’s oldest gardens, circa 1680. If time allows, stop to tour the pre-Revolutionary War house, acquired by the Drayton family in 1676, as well as restored slave cabins and the Audubon Swamp Garden. (You can also explore the estate via a nature train or boat tour, the latter operating seasonally, March-November.) While the gardens bloom year-round, the most dazzling display occurs in early spring.
Five miles up on the banks of the Ashley River, make your final stop Middleton Place, an 18th-century plantation featuring 65 acres of America’s oldest landscaped gardens. Visitors are welcome to tour the gardens, the house museum, a rice field and stableyards where costumed interpreters demonstrate skills once performed by resident artisan slaves.
The Place for Plantation Fare
Middleton Place also hosts a historic guest house-turned-restaurant, built in 1933. While the restaurant has a contemporary, casual atmosphere, the menu remains true to its Lowcountry heritage with plantation fare like okra gumbo, collard greens and Huguenot torte. Signature dinner dishes include Charleston She Crab Soup, Shellfish & Local Grits, Grilled Local Quail and a Southern BLT. (With a required dinner reservation, you can arrive after 5:30 p.m. to tour the gardens for free.) Guests can also enjoy authentic recipes created by the late chef Edna Lewis, called the Grand Dame of Southern Cooking. These recipes have been handed down through the years to today’s chefs.
And that’s the charm of Charleston—a charm that, no matter how long or short you stay, promises not to wear off anytime soon.
For more information:
Charleston Convention and Visitor Bureau
423 King Street
843/853-8000
charlestoncvb.com
Spoleto Festival USA
Events held throughout Charleston
843/579-3100 (box office)
spoletousa.org
Charleston’s Museum Mile
Meeting Street (and surrounding area)
charlestonsmuseummile.org
Charleston Museum
360 Meeting Street
843/722-2996
Charlestonmuseum.org
The Confederate Museum
Market Hall
188 Meeting Street
843/723-1541
csa-scla.org
Gibbes Museum of Art
135 Meeting Street
843/722-2706
gibbesmuseum.org
The Powder Magazine
79 Cumberland Street
843/722-9350
powdermag.org
Old Slave Mart Museum
6 Chalmers Street
843/958-6467
nps.gov/nr/travel/charleston/osm.htm
Heyward-Washington House
87 Church Street
843/722-2996
charlestonmuseum.org
Nathaniel Russell House
51 Meeting Street
843/724-8481
historiccharleston.org
Aiken-Rhett House
48 Elizabeth Street
843/723-1159
historiccharleston.org
Joseph Manigault House
350 Meeting Street
843/722-2996
charlestonmuseum.org
Edmondston-Alston House
21 East Battery
843/722-7171
middletonplace.org
Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon
112 East Bay Street
843/727-2165
oldexchange.com
Magnolias
185 East Bay Street
843/577-7771, extension 1
magnolias-blossom-cypress.com
King Street Antique District
Broad to Market Streets
shopkingstreetcharleston.com
Peninsula Grill
112 North Market Street
843/723-0700
peninsulagrill.com
Charleston Place Hotel
205 Meeting Street
888/635-2350 or 843/722-4900
charlestonplace.com
Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge
(or the Cooper River Bridge)
cooperriverbridge.org
Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum
40 Patriots Point Road
Mt. Pleasant
843/884-2727 or 866/831-1720
patriotspoint.org
Fort Sumter Boat Tours
Departing from Liberty Square in Charleston
and Patriots Point in Mt. Pleasant
800/789-3678
spiritlinecruises.com/sumter_overview.asp
Fort Sumter National Monument
National Park Service
1214 Middle Street
Sullivan’s Island
843/883-3123
nps.gov/fosu/index.htm
Drayton Hall
3380 Ashley River Road
843/769-2600
draytonhall.org
Magnolia Plantation
3550 Ashley River Road
800/367-3517 or 843/571-1266
magnoliaplantation.com
Middleton Place
4300 Ashley River Road
800/782-3608 or 843/556-6020
middletonplace.org
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The information in this story was accurate when it was published in the November/December 2009 issue of AAA World, but details such as dates, times and prices may have changed since then. We suggest you verify such details directly with the listed establishments before making travel plans.
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