Day Off in Charleston

Wednesday was our "free" day on the tour, which came at a good time so we could rest our seats and do something different. Bill chose to run 11 miles over the Ravenal Bridge, something he had always wanted to do but we could never make it down to the annual Cooper River Bridge Run. He arranged for a pick-up on Sullivan's Island so he wouldn't have to run back!


I chose to play tourist (along with about 10,000 other people in town) and walk through a couple of historic homes. As many times as I've been in Charleston, I've never taken the time to take a house and garden tour. The first one was the Nathaniel Russel House, lovingly restored in all its grandeur to the time of its original owners in the early 1800's.







The second house was the Calhoun Mansion, also dramatically restored after being condemned by the city in the early 1970's. The current owner still lives there and in fact was in his study working while our tour group tramped through his house. He must be rather eccentric, as he crammed the house full of 23 truckloads of antiques from all time periods and all styles: Egyptian, Chinese, Native American, European, etc, topped off by a taxidermy collection of exotic animals. The tour guide said that the most common reaction upon opening the front door is Oh My God. She wasn't kidding. Now I understand why the Historic Charleston Foundation declines to list it on its site.

The final house I visited was the Aiken-Rhett House, which in contrast to the other two was in a state of conservation, rather than restoration. It was purposely left in a state of decay, showing (literally) all layers of the family that lived there from 1817 to 1975. It does a good job at showing how slaves lived in these high society Charleston town houses. This is an image of the stable behind the house.

So after all this touring of historical homes, I was as tired as if if I had ridden a bike all day. Our group celebrated our day off with a Happy Hour on the rooftop terrace and then Bill and I had a dinner on our own at Fish. Truly, it is impossible to have a bad meal in this town!