Ashley and I had a WONDERFUL time in Charleston this past weekend. It was such a nice, relaxing trip that was much needed. We had both wanted to go to Charleston for what seems like forever, so we just decided to plan a long girl's weekend getaway and thought September would be the perfect time. We arrived on Thursday evening and left on Sunday morning, so we had two full days to cram a lot into! I will tell you ahead of time that I accidentally deleted all of my pictures from the trip, so I don't have pictures of everything I want to share. Ashley sent me some of her pictures though, so I'll include the best ones out of the bunch.
When we arrived on Thursday evening, we checked into the hotel and immediately went to dinner at a restaurant near the hotel that one of the desk clerks had recommended,
Coast. We both had the same thing- delicious tilapia.
We went to the
Market Pavilion Rooftop Bar for a a quick drink, and then decided to go back to the hotel and get in bed because we had planned an early start the next day.
On Friday morning, we decided to eat breakfast at a little place we had read about from several different places,
Toast. I had some delicious chocolate chip pancakes, bacon and a caramel latte.
We had booked a tour with
Palmetto Carriage Tours to see some of the downtown Historic area and some of the big, old houses in the Battery area. It was well worth it, and we got to see and learned a lot.
After our carriage tour, we walked around the Battery area for a little longer, and then went to lunch at
Henry's on the Market where I had some great crab cakes!
After lunch, we walked through the Market and walked down by the water.
It was just so pretty, peaceful and relaxing. We took a tour of the
Edmondston-Alston House, which was pretty cool, and then we walked all the way down King Street where there was any and every store that you can think of. We pretty much just window shopped, but it was fun. Before going back to the hotel to rest and get ready for dinner, we stopped by
Cupcake Down South for an afternoon treat :)
We headed to dinner at
Bocci's, and then stopped for dessert at
Kaminsky's Most Excellent Cafe. Can you tell that we ate the WHOLE ENTIRE TRIP? I mean, isn't that what you're supposed to do in Charleston??
The next morning we had plans to rent a car to go visit
Boone Hall Plantation and Isle of Palms beach. We picked up our car and headed toward Mount Pleasant to have some breakfast at
Charleston's Cafe (where I had chocolate chip pancakes, bacon and a latte once again!).
I'll preface this part of the post by saying that Boone Hall was one of the places I was most looking forward to visiting when planning this trip. My favorite movie of all time is The Notebook, and lots of scenes from the movie were filmed at Boone Hall. It is also where Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively got married last September.
We pulled up to the entrance and realized there was no one at the gate where you purchase tickets. We were surprised but drove on through admiring all the scenery. When we pulled up to the street leading up to the house with row of huge oaks, we noticed a lot of people milling around and tents and booths set up. Little did we know (and not posted on their website), the Highland Scottish Games and Festival was taking place at Boone Hall that day. We didn't think much about it until we were directed to a field for parking (which we had to pay for) and were ushered to an alternate entrance to pay for our (more expensive) tickets to the Festival. In the short time that we parked and got to the entrance, tons of other people were showing up. I was SUPER disappointed (and told the lady selling tickets that, which seemed to really bust her bubble) that our perfect day at Boone Hall was going to be ruined by all of the "Scottish" people in kilts, playing bagpipes.
Needless to say, we did still get to take the house tour, walk around the area where the slave cabins are located and relax at the Dock House. However, everywhere we went there were bagpipes playing totally different music throughout the whole plantation, so none of it sounded the least bit good or enjoyable.
Even with all the festival people in our way, it's an absolutely beautiful property, and I'm so glad we got to go.
After leaving Boone Hall we headed to the Isle of Palms Beach, which was also stunning. I've only ever been to Florida's beaches that I can remember and this was so different, but somewhere that I would definitely be interested in taking a beach vacation to in the future.
We ate lunch at
Coconut Joe's, right on the beach, and headed back to Charleston to do a little shopping and resting before dinner.
For our last night in Charleston, we ate dinner at
Magnolia's. Ashley and I shared fried chicken, mashed potatoes, creamed corn and biscuits and got our own desserts. I don't have picture of our meal because it disappeared too fast, but I do have pictures of my tomato soup and dessert.
We ended the evening sitting out on the dock near the Battery area, just enjoying the cool weather.
Although I missed Harper and Clint so much, I am so happy that we got to go and enjoy each other's company. We had so much fun and were blessed with really good weather the entire time we were there. I would recommend a Charleston vacation to anyone who might be interested and would highly recommend everything that we did and everywhere that we ate!
