Charleston: Spring Break in the South - Days 3-4

An alligator basks in the midday sun near the path on South Carolina’s Bull Island.

UPDATED: 2/5/2023

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day 3: historic Charleston

Charleston’s historic downtown is remarkably walkable and each street offers its own views of stately antebellum houses, many of which date to the early 1800s. We decided to spend our third day in the area touring Charleston entirely on foot.

For breakfast, we stopped in at a quaint crepe place a handful of blocks from our hotel called Breizh Pan Crepes. The owners of this restaurant hail from Brittany, in western France, and make delicious crepes! After mentioning that we love both France and traditional Breton music (a unique music tradition with celtic roots) the owner became much more animated and put his favorite Breton album on for us to enjoy. Sadly I don't remember the name of the band.

Historic homes abound in Charleston, SC.

For our walking route, we more-or-less followed Meeting Street down to the Battery and White Point Gardens, walked along East Bay Street overlooking the ocean, and took a number of side streets and walked much of King Street and East Bay Street, too. While this is from a local transit system, this map nicely depicts the main streets and layout of the historic downtown portion of Charleston. From our hotel, located on Marion Square, to White Point Gardens was about a 1.5 mile walk one way. Between the side streets and return walk, we probably walked 5 miles or so over the course of the day.

Some of the homes are open to visitors for a fee (not particularly cheap, though not outrageous either). For example, adult tickets to the Nathaniel Russell House Museum are $12 apiece (as of July 2020). Most of the homes are still private residences, though. We spent some time wandering through the Historic Charleston City Market, which dates to 1804 and has several hundred vendors selling arts, crafts, food, and all sorts of specialty products. Most, though not all, are local-made or have ties to historic area crafting.

White Point Gardens is much smaller than we expected at a mere 5.7 acres but is filled with a beautiful copse of oak trees, holds a gazebo in its center, and has a number of monuments plus cannons along the battery. Across the water is Fort Sumter, the official starting place of the American Civil War.

White Point Gardens’ gazebo sits near the waterfront of Charleston.

Walking along the battery to East Bay Street, we passed a number of placards displaying information of the area’s history and near the pier is the so-called Rainbow Row of brightly painted townhouses that make for some fun photos.

We decided to tour the Calhoun Mansion (as of July 2020, tickets are $17/adult, though it is also closed until the situation with COVID improves). The Calhoun Mansion is owned privately and is still a residence for a family today. Built in 1876, the mansion is an example of the Gilded Era and the excesses of decor, a trend continued by its current residents. The house is an overabundance of excess, and that is a laughable understatement.

Coming in at an astonishing 24,000 square feet, the home has 35 rooms, only some of which are open to the public given that it is still a private residence. The mansion was originally built by George Williams. When he died in 1903, his son-in-law, Patrick Calhoun, inherited the home. Over the years from then until present, the house was owned by a multitude of different people and fell into disrepair in a period prior to the purchase and renovation in the late 1970s. During World War I, it served as a hotel, which is when it was named The Calhoun Mansion.

But let’s talk about the Calhoun family for a moment. Patrick Calhoun, who inherited the house, was the grandson of Vice President (1825-1832) John C. Calhoun. John Calhoun accomplished many great things in his life and has a reputation for strong rhetoric; unfortunately, his rhetoric was on the side of pro-slavery. Calhoun was a strong fighter for and defender of the South and supported the rights of people to take their property (i.e., slaves) to any territories within the country. While Calhoun died in 1850, prior to the Civil War, his rhetoric and stance helped to inform and influence the pro-slavery movement. In a modern retort to his beliefs, Clemson University recently (June 2020) renamed the Calhoun Honors College to Clemson University Honors College in response to a petition that included prominent alumni.

For dinner, we headed over to Coast Bar and Grill , a restaurant tucked away on a small street just a short walk from our hotel. As its name suggests, this is a seafood spot. The restaurant is trendy, fresh, and includes a southern flair in its palate. Because the restaurant was so packed (oops, no reservations!), we ended up sharing a long table with some other diners.

Day 4: a boat trip to cape romain national wildlife refuge and bulls island

Spanish Moss blows in the breeze at Bull Island, South Carolina.

Bull Island or Bulls Island, no one seems to know for certain. But one thing is clear - it is a reference to alligators. (Fun fact: male alligators are called ‘bulls’.)

For a getaway from the crowds and the city, we decided to head to an unpopulated wilderness after our interest was piqued by photos of the phenomenal ‘Boneyard Beach’. (Hint: this is not a beach of actual bones, which would be creepy, but of island trees being subsumed by the ocean and turning into dead, smooth driftwood trees).

We caught the Bulls Island Ferry through Coastal Expeditions (as of July 2020, tickets are $40/adult). The boat departs from Awendaw, a town about 40 minutes from where we stayed in historic Charleston. The ferry company has two treks a day out to Bull Island, the visitors have about 4.5 hours to spend exploring the uninhabited (by humans) island, and then catch the return ferry. On the 30-minute outgoing trip, visitors get a glimpse and en route tour of Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge’s waterways and native grasses. On our trip, we spotted a Bald Eagle, and while we both knew how big they get, the shear size of the bird still surprised us!

A baby alligator sat by the trail and watched us pass by. FYI this was taken with a zoom lens!

There are no places on the island to purchase food, so it is recommended visitors bring whatever they need with them. We packed a picnic lunch ourselves and were able to eat it on the island. There are a number of different routes that visitors can take to hike the island. We elected for quite a long walk - 8.5 miles in length - down Sheeps Head Ridge Road to Lighthouse Road, which looped back via Beach Road to our ferry. We spent a full 3 hours and had to pick up our pace at the end to get to the ferry on time after dawdling along the way to enjoy the scenery and take photos.

After a long, exhausting day, we headed to Magnolia’s, a Southern restaurant we had hoped to visit on our first night when the power was out. Open since 1990, the restaurant is Southern elegance and cuisine at its best. We enjoyed delicious meals with stellar service before falling into the dead slumber of the exhausted back at our hotel.

During the day, Dustin had started feeling a tad sick like he was coming down with a cold, and when he woke up the next morning, he was all coughs and snuffles. So, we decided to cut our trip short by one day since he wasn’t feeling up to a lot of walking, but what we had planned to see on our final day was Middleton Place, a historic house and garden.

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