We visited Charleston, South Carolina this spring and took a fantastic tour.
Led by Charleston native Laura Hipp, we wandered the streets, homes, and gardens of the town.
Founded in 1670, Charleston has seen much American history played out in its streets.
Hipp, of Charleston Tea Party Private Tours, took us through the historic parts of town and even into a few private homes and gardens.
Seemingly everything we laid eyes on was beautiful!
Especially some of the private gardens.
Visiting private gardens on our Charleston Tour
We stopped at several gardens as we explored old Charleston.
The imagination, the history, the beauty, scents, and peace we saw in those gardens, were lovely.
I was impressed to see Palmetto Palms entwined with pink roses.
In one garden, we spied a dovecote–I’d only read about them before!
A clever teacup served as a bird feeder and water elements added a distinct feature more than once.
So often, I stopped to glimpse through a gate into a world of greenery, sunshine and birdsong.
The gardens alone would have been sufficient to view on this tour!
Details made a difference
Hipp suggested we read Gwen Bristow’s novel Celia Garth for a sense of the town.
I thought of the book often as we walked down the very streets described in that Revolutionary War-era story!
As noted elsewhere, I spied lions all over Charleston, but I often paused to take photos of unexpected, yet historic, items.
In the photos below are a symbol that the house was insured against fire–circa the Revolutionary era–and a gate was made about the same time.
Do you think that was a mounting stone for folks climbing into a carriage?
A pre-Revolutionary War house
Down along the waterfront facing the Atlantic Ocean, our Charleston tour took us to a house build before the Revolutionary War.
Still privately owned, the house left us oohing and ahh-ing.
Hipp provided historic explanations for the details we admired.
I stood outside the house and tried to imagine the view more than 300 years ago.
It would not have been different looking to the ocean, but in Charleston proper?
The local painted ladies may look the same!
I love observing local idiocyncracies when I visit a new place.
During our Charleston tour, we saw houses with open air porches, many stories high.
Tthe outdoor porches served as hallways. Inside, the rooms opened into each other.
Depending on how the house placement, direction-wise, air could circulate easier without an interior hallway.
Hipp noted, too, that the ceilings of those porches tended to be painted blue–to confuse insects into flying up toward the sky rather than down.
Taking a Charleston tour, hearing the stories, having a guide to answer my questions, meant a splendid May afternoon in a beautiful part of the world.
I knew little about Charleston before our visit–but the history, beauty, gardens and warmth of the people made us appreciate the city a great deal.
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A May Charleston tour: historic, beautiful and oh, so interesting! Click to Tweet
Visiting Charleston on a guided tour: houses, gardens, history, and beauty. Click to Tweet
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