#73 Charleston, SC 3-31-09

We stayed at James Island County Park RV camp. It is just across the river from old town Charleston. The first day we went into old town and took a nice carriage ride. The driver was a retired school teacher and was very good about giving us the history of the town and the buildings we visited.

Below I will post some of the sights we saw and the old homes.

The city is known as the city of churches. It has many old churches, lots of them have steeples and were used both in the Revolutionary War and the Civil war as lookouts.

Some of the homes were known as single wide homes. That meant that the house had only one room wide on the street side. If you look below at the door you will see that most of the house faces the side yard. If you look at the front of the house you will see a door that opens onto the porch or as the people in Charleston call it the “Piazza.” The door is called a privacy door and if that door was locked you just left a calling card when you visited.

One of the other things that our tour guide pointed out to us was the difference between wrought iron and cast iron. There are a lot of it in Charleston. Check out the Azaleas that are blooming below behind the cast iron fence.

The picture below is of a hotel that has been completely rebuilt. But, before they rebuilt it they took off the iron porch and saved it and reinstalled it again in the same place as it was originally. Real recycling.

Beautiful scroll work one the wrought iron below.

I couldn't resist this fence covered with Wisteria. We see the Wisteria flowers growing wild here in SC.

The house above is a double front home. It has a “widow’s walk” on the top. It is also known as a Cupola.

Doesn’t the home above remind you of an old time show boat?

The home above was owned by a lady who couldn't have any children. So after church each Sunday she would invite the children for ice cream on her piazza. Thus the name Ice Cream Sunday.”

This home faces the water and as you can see it’s address is Two Meeting Street. It is a very first home on Meeting St. It is now a bed and breakfast.

It is so hard to believe that the street above is made from stones that were brought over from England and used as ballast in the ships. To think that these stones could be older than the United States is fantastic. I walked on them just to get the feel of history. They are really rough and hard to walk on. I can’t imagine riding a wagon or buggy with metal wheels over these roads. I understand now why most of the roads before the automobile were still dirt.