Trip Report: Charleston

Ben and I have lived less than 300 miles from Charleston for almost eight years and we had never been until last weekend! It's one of those things we would always talk about how we needed to do but never got around to actually doing. We didn't have any plans for Thanksgiving this year, though, and I had one extra vacation day to use up before the end of the year, so we decided to finally go for it.

We stayed at the Mills House Hotel, which was in an absolutely fantastic location right in historic Charleston, kind of on the border between the historic residential and commercial districts.

It was lovely, except the windows are old and our room was on the second floor overlooking two restaurants which apparently have trash pickup every single morning at 6:30 a.m., including Sundays. This meant a lot of super loud crashing noises. So if you ever stay at the Mills House, request a room on the courtyard side.

It was all decked out for Christmas already.

We got there late in the afternoon on Thanksgiving Day so we just wandered a bit before heading over to Magnolia's for our Thanksgiving dinner.

My intention was to eat fish but no other meat.  I ordered catfish, in part because it didn't mention any other meats in the description, but the very first bite I took was a big piece of ham hidden in the rice.  Ha!  Oh well.

Ben ordered seafood & grits.

This was a great meal, a perfect start to the trip.

On Friday we spent the entire day wandering around the historic district.  The College of Charleston was nearby.

And there is just amazing, gorgeous architecture everywhere you look.

This is a common thing in Charleston - the door on the street actually just enters onto a wide porch that stretches the length of the house.  We posit this is because in the olden days they had to sleep on the porch because of the heat, maybe?

We thought these people were jerks but then saw on TV that the spiked fence is a relic leftover from the war.

A lot of the big old houses had these stones in front along the street, so they could step up into their carriages!

This is the Nathaniel Russell House, which we actually paid to go inside of for a tour. But no interior photography allowed!

This old post office was pretty cool inside.

This building is supposedly the oldest in Charleston.  1688!

This was just down from our hotel - one of the only buildings still in existence that served as a slave market.

We ate dinner at Poogan's Porch, right next to our hotel, and I failed to take even one picture!  It was also great, though.

On Saturday we got the car out and drove to Drayton Hall Plantation.  There are a lot of plantations you can visit in the area, but most are restored and commercialized.  This one is considered "preserved," not restored - they haven't recreated the house or estate to look as it did hundreds of years ago.  We thought that sounded a lot more up our alley than watching presentations by actors dressed in blacksmith outfits and what have you.

It was beautiful!

Right on the Ashley River.

We did a little nature walk around the grounds before the house tour.

The house was built around 1740, and owned by the Drayton family until the 1970s, when they sold it to the National Trust.  The Draytons hadn't lived there since before 1900, though, so the house fell into disrepair.

It was still pretty impressive, though, and interesting to see it in its natural state rather than all made up in a fake fancy manner.

We drove back to Charleston and ended up happening upon the Hominy Grill, which a bunch of people had recommended to me but was too far from our hotel to walk.  It was fate!

I got the huevos rancheros.

Ben ordered cornbread, a biscuit, and fried green tomatoes.  To be fair, he did feel gross afterward.

We also got dessert because we are grownups and can do whatever we want.

Brownie hot fudge sundae:

Guinness chocolate cake.

Then we walked around a little bit to work off the sick full feeling and hung out in the hotel watching Christmas movies until it was time to eat again.  For our last meal we went to Slightly North of Broad, which we chose in part because they had medium plates you could order in lieu of yet another giant entree.

My spinach salad had too many candied pecans!  I think my stomach was reaching capacity.

Ben got a salad with a candied pear on top:

And here is where we went off the deep end entirely because I ordered quail and Ben got RAW BEEF.

I ordered creme brulee for dinner, which was awesome.

And Ben got banana cream pie, which (surprise!) was also awesome.

Sunday morning we drove home and then for dinner on Sunday night we had lettuce salad with broccoli, green beans, and chickpeas.  It's Tuesday now and I still feel like I have not really recovered from all that food.  Vacation is hard on the system!  But fun.