DAY 6: Monday 14 May 2012 - Charleston, South Carolina
There was a sunny start this morning (I told you we could see Fort Sumter - below middle) as we headed out to the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens - an included excursion. The plantation has been in the same family since 1666 – the Draytons. We did come out here in 2010, but didn’t get past the parking lot as we couldn’t get onto a tour (it was a Smithsonian freebie day back then, so very busy). This time, we'd actually manage a tour!
The plantation house has been burnt down a time or two, so it’s not an original. There are also informal gardens, including a maze. The gift shop is in the bottom of the house and it’s huge, lots of little rooms all strung together with a weird array of stuff. It was a little expensive and flowery for me, but I guess that’s not unusual for a place with extensive gardens. Some interesting little treasures for someone though. We only had about twenty minutes to potter about though as we had a trolley tour to catch. Still had time to photograph the cat, however. Always time for that.
We met with the trolley and climbed onboard for our tour of the grounds of this Rice Plantation. We saw the old rice fields, live oaks, Spanish moss. We also spotted some turtles and birds. It was a little bumpy, with the occasional fern or branch hitting me in the face, but that’s exploring right?
The huts are the old slave quarters. We spotted a few gators, but the photos weren’t so good from the moving trolley. Unfortunately, my camera preferred to focus on the grasses in front of the gators rather than on the gators, damn it! Oh well, you’ll have to make the most of ‘em.
Once the tour was over we were dropped off by the plantation house alongside a bridge. We decided not to take the house tour as we also wanted to see the gardens. The first thing we found was a maze, which is supposedly based on one designed by Henry VIII. However, as time was short, we all decided not to try it out – we might be lost for days… We walked through the gardens hopefully heading for the white bridge we’d seen from the road. Phew!
There's all kinds of flowers and stuff - but then you'd expect that, what with it being gardens and all. Here, take a look.
I had to get a shot of this tree? Now, I'm no botanist (although I have done a few David Bellamy impressions in my time!) but I didn't know you could get electric trees! Look - this one is plugged in and everything! There's a dead bloke in the tree in the middle. Really! It's John Drayton Hastie who spent a lot of time working on the gardens, and his remains are interred within this magnolia that one of his ancestors planted 300 years before (although I strongly suspect he had someone plant it). He did a good job with the gardens.
We crossed over the bridge and headed around the house down to the Cooper River and boat dock, from where we could see the front of the house (we’d only seen the back up till now – who knew?) They have a reproduction of a rice barge - the Miss Julianna - which was the main form of transport for the products of the plantation, carrying thousands of tons when the roads were still poor.
There are some great views from the bridges in the gardens and some amazing trees. There are some cute turtles too!
As we were heading back to meet the bus, we spotted a petting zoo we didn't even know about! (Needs a bigger sign, folks!) We dipped inside and took a very quick look around. They have goats, turkeys and even a peacock, but, now we were late (hope you appreciate it!) - gotta run...
Why only three Teds? Well, they wanted more money to tour the house - and it's not even the original house. Also, the prices in the gift shop were a little higher than I'm used to. That, and the fact they needed to give me more warning about the petting zoo - I like petting zoos! So, sorry. It was a good day out - more to see than we had time for.
Once we were back on the bus, we headed back to Charleston for our free afternoon. We’d previously done walking tours and the boat ride to Fort Sumter, but Dave hadn’t seen the fort so I sent him over there. Can’t miss that – it’s where the first shots of the Civil War were fired, but that’s another story (and another trip!)
We’d decided to start our exploration of Charleston at The Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon and arrived there at exactly 2.30pm. We were offered a tour and were pointed down the stairs. Unfortunately, we were left to our own devices and while a tour was obviously ongoing, there was a whole bunch of kids being talked to (and a few adults) so we didn’t know if this was our tour or someone elses and ours would start shortly. So we lurked for a bit, then, with nothing else happening, we muscled our way into this tour - well, we tagged on anyway.
The current building is on site of the "Court of Guard" (second from the left below) which stood from about 1704 to 1767. Operating as a jail, this former building held many pirates as well as housing a public meeting room.
Our guide, Dan, was very informative. He told us a little about the old Charleston sea wall (the foundations can be seen below right) and how a new one was put in enlarging the city, creating the area to the south of this building, including the Battery. In the dungeon area you can see where they've excavated and found the old sea wall.
There are stairs that stop in mid-air - they cut them off when renovating, but they had previously been used for getting the mail in, when the building was used as a Post Office. Our guide led us around the rooms of the dungeons, where there are several mock-ups of how it used to be.
Dan proceeded to go on and on about the British and what "we" had done to "them!" I mean, I know it's true and all, but sheesh, I'm right here! Apparently, during the Revolutionary War, the Charlestonians secreted tons and tons of gunpowder into a secret room - well into a store room (below far right), which they then bricked up and "hid." Seems it worked because the British never found it during the time they occupied the city - and even the building! I suppose they never thought to look, and a wall is a wall. Isn't it?
Here's our guide Dan (below left!) with some of his less animated colleagues. Eye-patch guy is supposedly Major Stede Bonnet - a gentleman pirate (if you don't mind people shooting at you and nicking your stuff!)
We made our way up the stairs. There were quite a few photos here of how the Civil War affected Charleston. They also fly a flag which has the same layout as was flown over Fort Sumter when they surrendered in 1861. Upstairs, there is a large open room and beyond that, there is a smaller room containing a number of paintings of Moultrie, Francis Marion, Lafayette and others.
Back on the ground floor, there's a Post Office set up, like the one which used to be housed in this building. Sadly, not the original from here, but genuine for the period, but it shows how the Post Office could have looked while housed in this building, between 1815 and 1896. There's another big hall on the ground floor and this contains some South Carolina exhibits and portraits.
Overall, the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon is a small place. It takes about an hour and costs $8, but it is worth a visit - especially if you get a guide as good as Dan - the tour takes about half an hour.
Our next stop was on Meeting Street so we set off in that direction. On the way there we passed Washington Square Park so went in - thought we'd try and get another shot of George Washington (our last visit the sun was in the wrong place - he looked great from the back!) Nope, still not great. Maybe it's my assistant that's rubbish? We crossed a cobblestone road, created from the ballast the ships of the 1700s would drop off in the harbour, before loading their cargo. The stones were used for over ten miles of road before iron keels made the need for such ballast obsolete.
Across the road, I spotted the The Mills House Hotel. Opened in 1853, the wrought iron balconies were imported from Philadelphia. General Robert E Lee stayed here during the Democratic National Convention in 1860 (the election that led to Lincoln becoming President). Later, Theodore Roosevelt visited the South Carolina Interstate and West Indian Exposition in 1901-1902. Surviving a fire in 1939, the hotel was renovated in the 1970s.
Below right is the Circular Church. The church was established in 1861 by the original settlers of Charles Town - there are monuments in the grounds dating back to 1695! The previous building on this site was destroyed by fire in 1861 and this current building you see here was completed in 1892.
It was threatening to rain as we walked up Meeting Street - and me with no plastic bag today! Eventually, we arrived at the Charleston Fire Department's Central Station. Following an earthquake in 1886, three Fire Stations were built to better serve the community. The Central Fire Station was the largest, a double "double house" at the corner of Meeting and Wentworth Streets, opened in 1888. It was home to four steam engine companies when it opened. Since 1976 it has housed two engine companies and some really cool antique equipment. What's great is you can just wander in off the street and take a look at the old engines.
My only complaint (and why I dropped them a Ted) is because there's not much information about what the engines are (or were). When they were from, what they did and the like. Just a little plaque alongside each one is all I'm asking. Oh, and a sign saying it is okay for bears to sit in them! It didn't say I couldn't but I didn't want to break anything so I thought I'd better not.
Between the two entries into the building (one on Meeting Street for the modern machines) and one on Wentworth (for the antiques) is a small courtyard which houses some memorials. The one on the left is in memory of a particular incident on 18 June 2007 where nine firefighters were killed in the Charleston Sofa Super Store fire. The next memorial has the names of all the firefighters who lost their lives since 1902, including those in the Super Store fire - there are more names on the back.
You can see the building has archways for the fire engines. Trouble is, over time engines have increased in size, but the archways haven't. This means that Charleston has to special order it's fire engines, so they can get through them. They look good though.
We left the fire station and continued north up Meeting Street. As we walked we spotted a DASH Trolley - Charleston's freebie transport around the city. We made a dash for it and jumped on. We rode up to the Charleston Museum where we got off. It was 4.30pm.
We checked with the Museum and they closed at 5pm, yet still wanted their $10 entry fee - for half an hour! Forget that! Fortunately, their Hunley replica (1967) is outside, so we just took a few pictures of that. Their loss. We might have gone in for a $5 late fee, but no more. Their loss.
As we weren't far from our hotel, we decided to head back. We grabbed a frappacino from Starbucks in the lobby and headed up to our room to think about our dinner plans. In our room at the Francis Marion, there was an offer for a free bottle of wine with the purchase of two entrées. That decided us - we would head to the hotel's Swamp Fox Restaurant.
We checked with the waitress and she agreed that yes, we could have two free bottles of wine with four entrees - result! Our waitress was really helpful and even offered Di a couple of veggie choices. Di's mushroom and goats cheese tart, with local mushrooms in buttery shortcrust pastry was bigger than me! Tasted good too (well, I had to check, didn't I?) For mine, I chose the four-side special, which (like it says on the tin) was a choice of four side-orders. I went for Garlic spinach (yes, really!), mac and cheese (a tad small, but very very hot), roasted potatoes and pepperjack grits. I don't remember having grits but I know I should when I'm in the South and - now that I know there's nothing nasty in them - I thought I'd give them a try. They were a bit bland, even with the pepperjack (cheese) so I palmed them off on Paul. At $25 a bottle (and two bottles) we were well ahead of the game, savings-wise.
We finished with strawberry shortcake and four forks! It wasn't quite what we expected, more slab cake with buttercream and strawberries if you ask me, with some strawberry syrup, but it was very nice and I managed to force it down. So, my assistants have the odd fork mark in their hands - a bear has to protect his dessert!
It wasn't the cheapest dinner of our vacation, but we did only have to pay for the four entrées and one dessert so we figured we did well out of the deal. The food was great (except the grits) and the service was excellent, so how could I give them anything other than five Teds? It happens. Then, it was back to the room to pack up for the next day's journey to Beaufort and on to Savannah, Georgia.
