We had never been to Charleston so when we realized how close we would be for the eclipse we decided to spend a few days in Charleston afterwards. We stayed at James Island County Park which is a few miles outside of downtown Charleston. The park is beautiful and the campground was one of the nicest we’ve stayed at.

Charleston is a nice city with a lot of history, but August definitely isn’t the best month to go, it was HOT and humid! We had read about The Angel Oak Tree and made this our first stop. It is truly an amazing tree and worth making the time to visit.

On the way we had a really good southern breakfast at Sunrise Bistro.  They had great coffee and biscuits and also, surprisingly, really good bagels (who would think you could find good bagels in South Carolina?!?)

If you are in Charleston, you have to visit at least one plantation, right? There are many in the area, and we decided to visit Middleton Place. The original plantation house has been destroyed, but the grounds were beautiful and a great way to spend an afternoon.

  

That evening we went on the Blues and BBQ riverboat dinner cruise with Charleston Harbor Tours for some amazing views from the water. The dinner was buffet style and the food was good but there wasn’t a big selection. The band featured Shrimp City Slim  They were fun and we even danced to a few tunes.

 

When we were in downtown Charleston we chose to park near the visitors’ center and take the free DASH shuttle around town. This way we got to see a lot of downtown and go to different areas without having to drive in the very congested area and find parking (not fun in an F350!).

We love to visit Farmer’s Markets wherever we go and the Charleston Farmers Market on Saturday mornings in Marion Square was a good one. After that we went to the famous Hyman’s Seafood (a must visit in Charleston) for appetizers at the bar. The hundreds of celebrity photos on the wall were fascinating to browse through and the food is great. Everything we had was good, but the hush puppies were definitely the star of the meal.

We wanted to make sure we hadn’t missed any major historical points so we went to the Visitors Center and got tickets for Pineapple Tours bus tour. Our tour guide was Benjamin and he was fantastic. He obviously loves his city and was very informative and passionate. It was so personal we felt like we were getting a private tour, he even extended it to take us to a site we asked about.

If you follow this blog, you know Candi loves to cook and makes her own ice cream. The first ice cream cookbook she had was Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream and she got a lot of inspiration from it. We always knew if we ever saw an actual Jeni’s Ice Cream Shop  we would have to stop. WE DID and it was everything we imagined. Oh, and we made one other memorable stop while we were in Charleston, you know, never pass up an opportunity to pee!! (Thank God for construction sites!)