On Tuesday, we woke up to another cloudy and windy day. I think that the temps would only hit a high of 57 degrees. 'Not exactly a beach day like we had hoped. So after we got up and got around, we decided to just walk from our house to the historic district and just spend the day walking the city.
Several blocks from our house, things really started to pick up and we came up to the City Market. From the front, it just looks like it is one building, but once you enter underneath the stairs (I'm not sure what is upstairs), that one building attaches to about four more and the city market ends up being about five city blocks long!
We weren't planning to do any shopping, but there was everything that you could imagine inside...from paintings to woven baskets to homemade jewelry to sunglasses and purses. One guy was selling 3d printable toys, which upset Nolan because he said that he "could easily go home and print the same thing for much less". LOL
It probably took us about an hour to walk all through the market and then we just turned to the right and began to walk through the streets. I had read about the "Philadelphia Alley", otherwise known as the "Dueling Alley" in one of the historic books that was back at the house, so we set off looking for that.
A lot of these back roads and alleys are still made from the original brick or cobblestone. You really have to watch where you are walking so you don't twist an ankle, but we really enjoyed looking at the narrow roads and alleys and their original design.
What the sign doesn't tell you is that this alley became most popularly used for dueling between disgruntled men, usually after gambling or disputes over property. It's hard to believe that so many were killed or serious injured in an alley that now is home to a city theatre group and has such beautiful flowers.
(Because of the beautifully colored buildings and the flowers in this alley, we would go back to the alley later in the week to take some of Melayna's senior pictures).
There really are so many beautiful and historic homes, churches, and city offices in Charleston. We walked all day and we still only caught a glimpse. We noticed that several of the smaller streets and alleyways were closed this time as a lot of restoration work was being done on many of the houses. Even new homes were being built in a way that would make them look "old" and "historical".
The famous Rainbow Row
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After walking and winding our way through the Historic District, we walked down to the water to visit the Pineapple Fountain. They have such beautiful green gardens and a fountain for the kids to play in. They also have swings hanging on the pier. It was such a fun place to visit and to spend time the last time we were in Charleston, but unfortunately, it was so windy and chilly this time that we didn't stay very long. We sat on the swings for a little while and we took a couple of pictures by the fountain and then we just moved on.
Five years ago, the groundwork had just been laid for a new hotel. This entire area was surrounded by a fence and construction equipment was being moved into the area for the construction of a new hotel. Now the hotel is completed and they just had their grand opening the first of April
"Mr Teenage boy who doesn't like to have his picture taken randomly..."
As I mentioned above, the newly built hotel called "The Cooper" just opened up at the beginning of April. We were walking around the back side of the hotel right along the water's edge and a security guard asked us not to be there as they were still working on the landscaping in the back. He told us that if we wanted to, we could definitely go inside and see what it all looked like from the inside, so that's what we did. I didn't take any picture inside because there were a lot of people cleaning up and getting a banquet hall set up, etc. but it was really pretty inside and they had it decorated to look like it was the inside of a ship. All very unique and thoughtfully laid out. So much so, that when I went online to look at pictures of the rooms, I noticed that to reserve a room for that evening, it would cost us $1200 PER NIGHT for one regular room. To stay there on that upcoming Friday night, it was $4800. Ahem...'guess we can mark this hotel off our list of places to stay!! LOL!
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After walking all around the harbor and the historic district, we decided to start heading back to our house. Along the way, we stopped on Kings Street again so that we could step into some of the stores that had been closed on Sunday night. Melayna wanted to visit some bookstores (I think we stopped in four different ones) and she even picked up a couple of books for her future classroom.
Each bookstore had it's own unique atmosphere. It was fun to stop in and see what they each had to offer.
The shops were starting to close up for the night around 6:00 so we decided that we should probably head back to the house to grab some dinners and then maybe we would go back out to the ice cream place that was just a few blocks away.
But first, I wanted to check inside one of the beautiful Catholic churches that we walked by on our way home. They had a sign outside of the doors advertising that we could come in during their open hours, so we took a few minutes to go inside and to look at the beautiful paintings and architecture of this old church. (If I remember correctly, it was built in the late 1700's)
We really were quiet and respectful of the church and its customs, but you know Laynie... she just has to be silly from time to time. (And she wanted me to send some silly pics to her sisters who weren't able to come on the trip).
We made one final stop on our walk home as we passed the old jail. Legend has it that it is haunted due to the Civil War soldiers that died there during the war, and they give haunted tours most nights during the week. I really don't ever enjoy those types of things and don't really want to celebrate "ghosts" or "spirits" so we didn't take any of the evening tours, but we did walk by and look at it during the daylight hours. As it turns out, it was right around the corner from our house.
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We ended our day in the city by grabbing some frozen pizzas at the local Target and going home for dinner. I think we may have gone back out for the ice cream and before coming back home for a quiet evening of Amazon Prime movies and a couple of card games together.
Tomorrow we would head out away from the city so stay tuned for our next adventure...
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