At the coast we reached Charleston Wednesday evening, pretty late, so we opted for the traditional city campground called WalMart. We had stopped for dinner on the way, at a place called Sticky Fingers, where we got four different kinds of really tasty spareribs (dry rub, sweet, spicy and wet). Ok, the wet was not really that good (the meat was too dry), but the dry rub and the spicy ones were really good. The night was hot (85 deg / 30 C) and humid and I’ll admit that I didn’t sleep too well, but Sabine said it was not too bad. Thursday we got the essentials, Nutella at Cost Plus and an oil change and some bug spray at WalMart and we were ready to go downtown.

For once we actually went to the tourist information, where we also parked, before we started to look at the city. We picked up some maps and started down the direction City Market to get some lunch. The City Market was more of a tourist trap than a food place, selling things that really only tourists will buy.

The town is an amazing mix of old and new; lots of restaurants, shops, bars and lots of “natives” (read ”not tourists”), giving it a lively feel; wherever you walk there are pretty old houses, narrow streets and cobblestoned alleys, small gardens, impressively big gardens, fountains and shady side streets, so that it’s hard to decide where to turn next. We drifted through town for quite a while like that (through, among others, Zig Zag Alley), looking at one amazing house after another. 🙂

Felix fell asleep in the baby jogger while walking and we used the time to get some sweet tea (addictive!) and a coffee at a very nice coffee house on East Bay Street. In the café we asked where to go for some real southern food and the guy behind the bar suggested we go to Jestine’s Kitchen. It is a local favorite, according to him, but since everyone sends the tourists there it was also often frequented by “the others” as well.

After Felix was awake again, and we walked through most of this lovely town and we decided to go look at the restaurant. What should I say – it did not look like a “fancy restaurant” – it looked more like an old cafeteria .. not a place I would pick by looks, but we decided that it would be the dinner spot for the evening.

Walking back town we stumbled over a wine bar, called Flynn and O’Hara, and sat down for two glasses of wine and a lemonade.

It showed up that the owner of the bar was german and we chatted with him a bit and he ended up offering us a parking spot for our van, so we could sleep in their driveway. Like any good husband he needed to clear it with his wife 😉 but afterwards we picked up the van and dropped it off in their drive way – one block off the main shopping street. Just as we left the place two musicians came in and started to prepare for some jazz music in the evening.

Now it was time for food and we walked to the restaurant. Earlier we saw that there was a line outside – on a Thursday evening – and was afraid that we couldn’t get any space, but we were a bit late and while it was full we could still get space. The food here was a bit different than what we were use to see in restaurants and Sabine got fried chicken, with greens and red rice, and I got two fried pork chops, with beans and mash! The food was very well made and very tasty (apart from the beans: they had been boiled waaay too long), all washed down with more sweet tea.

After dinner we walked a bit and Felix really wanted to hear the music, so we walked back to the bar (nice not having to drive afterwards), where the owner, his wife and youngest daughter also were. Felix got another lemonade (and we got more wine) and got so excited that he started to jump around to the music. At the end of the gig the musicians found that so funny that they started to play the Flintstones and Old Mac Donald had a farm .. for him.

Time to go to bed .. the night was as hot as it was humid, just like the night before (which we had spent at WalMart), and none of us really slept well, but in the morning we must have been falling asleep anyway as we didn’t hear our “landlords” taking their bicycles to the market. When we got up they came back .. and we now learned that yesterday was not Thursday, but Friday, and suddenly it made a lot more sense that there was so much night life in town (not knowing the day of the week is called the vacation syndrome…)

We decided to visit the market. Originally we wanted to have bought flowers for our “landlords”, but since they came home with flowers from the market, we ended up buying some fresh honey.

The fruit and vegetable marked was not very big, compared with what we are used to, but the arts and craft as well as the food available on the market was a big part of it.

After looking around we wanted to get a crepe and go back and fetch the bus as we were going to drive to Boone Hall Plantation that has a 200 year old Live Oak Allee (the one from “North and South”, way back when…) that afternoon, but on the way back we passed a Quicksilver shop and after almost 8 years in California I finally caved and bought a pair of real flip-flops .. you know the one with a g-string for you big toe 😉 It is actually not as bad to wear as I thought the first few times I tried it. (Sabine is grinning…)

At the Boone Hall Plantation we first saw a show by a woman explaining the Gullah culture and language, which was not only extremely entertaining (she was telling a story both in Gullah and in English), but also very informative (since we didn’t know much at all about the gullah culture. Afterwards we walked down through some of the old slave houses still left and restored (they are used for exhibitions about the life back then, have old pictures on the walls and sweetgrass baskets for sale – Sabine was tempted , but got sticker shock…) and finally we got a tour of the mansion. Nice “house”, but honestly not as spectacular as I expected it to be. Not actually as big as I would have thought either, and it somehow reminded me a bit about Hindsgavl Slot in Denmark (the place we got married).

Now it was time to go to Savanna and find a campground for the night and figure out of dinner.