14TH MAY,   CHARLESTON

Named after King Charles II.    
A beautiful city, full of elegant houses and clapperboard houses, trees and parks.  It is built on marshes between two rivers and two creeks.  This was to protect it from the Spanish, French and eventually the British   

We had a lovely time visiting so many old Georgian houses, museums and I did  a small amount of retail therapy but Wow its expensive.  
We found some lovely restaurants to eat in over the four days we were there.  Not long enough as there was so much more to see and experience but our schedule is tight.  The most notable restaurants was a fantastic sea food one called ‘Hanks’ where, because we had not booked and they were very busy, we went on the communal table and had such fun chatting with many others and eating delicious food in a great friendly atmosphere.  We also went to a restaurant with very interesting food divided into Native American, African influence, Modern local and French influence.  I had the Venison from the Native American with blueberries and various other interesting ingredients it was tender, gamey and delicious I started with Foiegras with a fruit pie.  Jonathan had preserved Rabbit followed by Oxtail.  The only downside to the restaurant was that it was quite starchy and consequently the atmosphere was not as much fun but it was still excellent it is called ‘Circa 1886’.  Soft shell crabs, delicious another night at the Crab House.   We were based in the Charleston Harbour Resort Marina which was across the bridge from Charleston but with an hourly complimentary bus to the centre and a ferry that went every hour as well.  If we had had time there was the use of all the hotel facilities such as the swimming pools and beach, but we had no time.