South Carolina--Day 4

September 21, 2011

This day we pretty much stayed in Downtown Charleston.  Our first item of business was to do a pirate tour.  When I was researching things to do in Charleston, I came across the pirate tour numerous times and it had great reviews.  So we booked a tour and I must say that many of us were disappointed.  Eric, our tour guide, had loads of information on pirate, but it was really boring.  However, we did capture a few photos to commemorate the dreadful experience.

On the upside, we did manage see some historic buildings during the pirate tour like the Old Slave Mart Museum, St. Philips Church, a cobble stone street, and the Pink House Gallery.

After the pirate tour, my mom wanted to treat us to lunch so we had some regional cuisine at the Cru Cafe.

After lunch we walked down Market street.  I loved this.  It was a flea market in a building about a mile long.

One item that you see a lot in these markets are many handwoven baskets.  They are gorgeous and so neat which also makes them really expensive.  The one Nathan is holding below I believe was $300.

My sister has always wanted one of these since she was a little girl so we walked the market for her to find one--and she did!

After Market Street we did some more walking around in Charleston.

We went to the historic St. Michael's church.

It was in this pew that Princess Diana (with Prince Charles--blah) and a few other famous couples have sat in for worship. 

I took a picture of my sister leading the music in St. Michael's.  

 These headstones are of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and John Rutledge.  These men were statesman of South Carolina and played an important role in regards to our Nations Constitution.

After St. Michael's church we headed down to East Bay Street to view the historical Rainbow Row.  I love looking at these homes.  I used to love coming here when I was a little girl because at that time I was into the show Rainbow Brite.

I love these little walkways between the homes.  They are so pretty.

After we walked down East Bay Street we started to come up on The Battery.  There are several homes here and they are gorgeous (not to mention very pricey).  The Battery is right up along the Charleston Harbor and therefore were susceptible to damage and ruin during the wars, and also to flooding.

As we continued to walk we made our way to the Nathaniel Russell House.

The tour guide told us that we could not take pictures inside the house, so the two stair case photos are courtesy of Google images.  I love this staircase.  It is so beautiful, and the neat thing about it--it's a free flying staircase!

This is a picture of the drawing room.  But since I couldn't take any pictures during the tour I downloaded this courtesy of Google images.

By this time, the end of the day was drawing near and we were starting to get hungry.  The rest of my siblings went to a restaurant called Moe's, but Nathan and I decided to go out to dinner by ourselves in celebration of our anniversary.  We went to the famous Magnolias restaurant.

Nathan had the pecan chicken with mashed potatoes and asparagus, and I had the buttermilk fried chicken breast with asparagus, biscuits, mashed potatoes, and creamed corn.  Below is a picture of my southern dinner (I forgot to take a picture before I started eating my chicken).

We normally do not eat desserts when we go out to eat, but we wanted to eat some true southern desserts while we were in Charleston for the experience.  Nathan had the peach and blackberry crisp, and I had the southern pecan pie.  YUM!  This is why we ended up gaining about 5-10 pounds on this trip.

After Magnolias, Nathan and I drove around for a while and ended up back in our hotel and watched a little bit of Fraiser (love that show).  Our feet were in a lot of pain because of all the walking we did so we just took it easy before we went to bed.