Journeying Geographer: Day 53: Charleston, SC

While in the Charleston area, we stayed three nights in Mount Pleasant, just across the Cooper River from downtown Charleston. Today we drove a couple of miles from our hotel to Patriots Point and took a water taxi across the river (really more of a bay here, an estuary where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers meet after they flow around the peninsula that is downtown Charleston). It was another beautiful, sunny fall day, with forecast highs in the low 70s.

Our ferry took us to Waterfront Park, where we disembarked and began our self-guided walking tour of the French Quarter. Actually, we cheated a bit by taking a free DASH (Downtown Area Shuttle) a few blocks to save us a little walking. We began our walking tour at the intersection of Meeting and Market Streets at the northwest corner of the French Quarter. We walked past many historic public buildings, churches, and cemeteries. We then enjoyed some local cuisine at Low Country Bistro, near the Charleston Public Market. My frogmore stew (a.k.a low country boil, and no, it doesn't contain frogs, nor is it even really a stew) was excellent, and my wife's market jambalaya had just the right amount of kick to it.

After lunch we walked further south, eventually reaching White Point Gardens, better known as The Battery, due to the cannons that were placed there during times of war. A strategic location for protecting the rest of the city, it is now strategic for photos of the bay and entrance to the harbor. Many walkers and joggers were enjoying the fine weather, along with plenty of tourists like us, with cameras in hand. From there we walked back north, past Rainbow Row, to Waterfront Park to await our water taxi for the return ride.

Charleston (founded in 1670 as Charles Towne, in honor of King Charles II of England) is a remarkable city with a rich history. It was both amazing and humbling, though, to see the wealth exemplified by the huge public buildings and mansions and realize that much of the wealth was gained as the result of enslaving other people to produce greater profits. We toured the Old Slave Mart Museum, which detailed much of the history of the slave markets in Charleston (there were over 40 of them). For copyright reasons, no photos were allowed inside, but the knowledgeable staff and exhibits provided a sobering look at the history of this now beautiful southern city.