Showing 1-18 of 18 results
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Aiken-Rhett House
The 1818 Aiken-Rhett House is the only surviving urban plantation. It was owned by a South Carolina bigwig who stuffed the house with plunder from his European travels. It has grand chandeliers, an imposing marble staircase, its own art gallery and well-preserved slave quarters.
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Aquarium Wharf
The Aquarium Wharf surrounds pretty Liberty Sq and is a great place to stroll around and watch the tugboats guiding ships into the seventh largest container port in the US. The wharf is the embarkation point for tours to Fort Sumter. Boat tours of the harbor depart from the harbor tour dock and nearby Charleston Maritime Center. Also here is the IMAX Theater.
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Charleston Museum
Founded in 1773, the Charleston Museum claims to be the country's oldest, with exhibits from various periods of Charleston's long and storied history, from Washington-era silver to slave tags, as well as a collection of stuffed and mounted prehistoric animals. It is situated on Marion Square, a 10-acre greenspace that was formerly home to the state weapons arsenal.
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Children's Museum of the Lowcountry
The very hands-on Children's Museum of the Lowcountry has eight interactive exhibit areas, including a 30ft replica shrimp boat where kids can play captain.
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Circular Congregational Church
The Romanesque Revival Circular Congregational Church was built in 1681 and was used as the city's first meeting place, hence the name of its street. The oldest graves in the city are here.
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Confederate Museum
On the second floor of the old city market building is the Confederate Museum, established by the Daughters of the Confederacy, and housing copious 'rebel' memorabilia.
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Edmonston-Alston House
Overlooking Charleston Harbor, the 1828 Edmonston-Alston House was built by a Scottish shipping merchant and later renovated by rice-plantation mogul Charles Alston. It has remained in the Alston family ever since - in fact, the family still resides on the 3rd floor.
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Fort Sumter Visitor & Education Center
Confederates fired the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, an artificial island at the entrance to Charleston Harbor, where the Union army had retreated. The Union contingent surrendered and, as a Confederate stronghold, Fort Sumter was shelled by Union forces from 1863 to 1865.
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French Huguenot Church
Gothic spires and arches mark the French Huguenot Church founded in 1681 by French Protestant refugees. Services were once timed with the tides to accommodate those arriving by boat.
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Gibbes Museum of Art
The Gibbes Museum of Art was established in 1905 and has a good collection of colonial and contemporary American art, Southern art and architecture and regular exhibitions highlighting different aspects of the collection.
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Heyward-Washington House
This house built in 1772, belonged to Thomas Heyward Jr, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Though the outside isn't much to look at, the interior contains some fine examples of Charleston-made mahogany furniture.
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Joseph Manigault House
Across the street from Charleston Museum is the neoclassic-style, Joseph Manigault House, once the showpiece of a French Huguenot family who made their fortune trading rum, sugar and rice.
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Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim
First established in 1749 and rebuilt in 1840, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim is the oldest continuously used synagogue in the country and home to the nation's first Reform congregation.
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Nathaniel Russell House
Built by a Rhode Islander, known in Charleston as 'the king of the Yankees,' the 1808 Federal-style Nathaniel Russell House is noted especially for its spectacular, self-supporting spiral staircase and lush English garden.
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Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon
The Palladian Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon built in 1771 as an exchange and customs house for the busy port, was used as a dungeon prison for pirates and other outlaws.
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Old Slave Mart
The Old Slave Mart is part of South Carolina's painful past. Captured Africans were once stored here in the 'barracoon' (slave jail) before being taken to the mail hall and auctioned off to the highest bidder. Slaves stood on auction blocks to be inspected by wealthy plantation owners before being taken away to work the rows of cotton, indigo and tobacco. After the Civil War the market became a tenement building, before being turned into an African American crafts museum in 1938. The current museum was opened in 2007.
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South Carolina Aquarium
The excellent South Carolina Aquarium covers 69,000 sq ft, almost all of which are devoted to South Carolina habitats, flora and fauna. The best part of the aquarium is the 330,000-gallon Great Ocean Tank, where sharks, massive fish and a giant loggerhead turtle swim behind a two-story window.
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White Point Park
At the southernmost tip on the peninsula are the antebellum mansions of the Battery - take a seat in shady White Point Park and ponder whether 'filthy rich merchant seaman' is still a viable career. Around the corner, a stretch of lower E Bay St known as Rainbow Row is one of the most photographed areas of town for its candy-colored houses.
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Showing 1-18 of 18 results
