Road Trip: Charleston

By Isadora Pennington

If you were to take European architectural style and mix it with a healthy dose of Southern charm, you’d come up with something that looks an awful lot like Charleston, SC.

Founded in 1670 by English colonists, this quaint and historic city sits comfortably between the Ashley and Cooper rivers at the base of the Charleston Harbor. The city flourished through the mid 19th century until the Civil War, when its sustained heavy damage. A slow recovery and tight budget forced property owners to repair their buildings instead of building anew, preserving the city’s antebellum charm.

Recently my fiancé and I took a visit to this adorable town for a romantic long weekend. We stayed at a great little hotel close to town called the King Charles Inn (237 Meeting St., kingcharlesinn. com), as we prefer to walk when visiting somewhere new. The hotel is in the historic district, and is a great area full of restaurants and shops. If you don’t want to walk, there are bike rentals, pedicabs, taxis and even a free trolley on most of the main streets nearby.

We spent a lot of time on Market Street, checking out both the year-round, open air, but mostly indoor farmer’s market and the shops along King Street that range from fun, touristy gift shops to high-end retailers, to dive pizza joints. You see, the city is an enigma in many ways. Near Marion Square and the downtown shopping areas, the streets are filled with throngs of college students from nearby College of Charleston when school is in session. Yet if you go just a handful of blocks further east and south toward the harbor, you’ll encounter less partying and more families, quiet residential streets, and many of the city’s art galleries.

In addition to funky and repurposed buildings (like the interior of the Urban Outfitters there –what a chandelier!) and tiny, winding cobblestone streets, there are a plethora of unique and eyecatching churches throughout the city. Near the coast is a strip of buildings known as Rainbow Row, 13 colorful historic houses that make up the longest cluster of Georgian row houses in the United States. The city is truly, as a friend described it, a “photographer’s dream.”

At the end of our visit, our bellies full of Callie’s Hot Little Biscuits (now open in Virginia-Highland, too), we decided to pop over to one of the area’s historic forts before heading home to Atlanta.

Fort Moultrie is situated on Sullivan’s Island overlooking the Charleston Harbor, and we spent a few hours walking the property and learning some regional Civil War history. If you’ve got a hankering for a little history to round out your trip, I highly recommend going to the website charlestoncvb.com for a list of nearby forts and other historic sites you can enjoy while you’re in town.