Sights in South Carolina
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South Carolina Aquarium
The massive, excellent South Carolina Aquarium showcases the state's diverse aquatic life, from the otters of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the loggerhead turtles of the Atlantic. The highlight is the 42ft Great Ocean Tank, which teems with sharks and alien- looking puffer fish.
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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.
By the end of the war it was a pile of rubble, and some very forbidding concrete defenses were added later. A few original guns and fortifications and the obvious strategic location give a feel for the momentous history here, and there's a good little museum as well.
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Hl Hunley
HL Hunley submarine, in a faceless warehouse at a working dockyard north of downtown, rests in a 90,000-gallon tank of water like some strange top-secret science experiment. In 1864 the Confederate Hunley completed the world's first submarine mission by sinking the Union's USS Housatonic, only to vanish immediately afterwards. In 1995 it was discovered off Sullivan's Island and carefully brought to shore. On weekends you can visit the Hunley and see creepy facial reconstructions of her eight crew members.
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Middleton Place
Designed in 1741, the vast gardens of Middleton Place are the oldest in the US. One hundred slaves spent a decade terracing the land and digging the precise geometric canals for the owner, wealthy South Carolina politician Henry Middleton. The grounds, now maintained by a nonprofit organization, are truly bewitching, a mix of classic formal French gardens and romantic woodland settings. Popular horse-drawn carriage tours ($15) take visitors to see real flooded rice paddies. Horse tours are $10.
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Magnolia Plantation
Magnolia Plantation, which sits on 500 acres owned by the Drayton family since 1676, will be enjoyed even by those who disdain 'boring historical stuff.' It's a veritable plantation theme park, with a nature train, boat tours, a swamp walk, a petting zoo, and an outdoor café full of wandering peacocks, in addition to the guided house tour. Don't miss the reconstructed cabins of the slaves who once tended the indigo, cotton, corn and sugarcane.
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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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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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Drayton Hall
The 1738 Palladian brick mansion of Drayton Hall was the only structure on the Ashley River to survive the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and the great earthquake of 1886. Guided tours through the empty house will appeal to history and architecture buffs.
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Gibbes Museum of Art
Gibbes Museum of Art houses a decent collection of American and Southern works; the most interesting way to visit is in conjunction with a two-hour walking tour that combines the museum with various artistically significant city sites.
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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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Old Slave Mart Museum
- Charleston, USA
- Sights › Dark
African men, women and children were once auctioned off at the Old Slave Mart Museum, now a museum of South Carolina's shameful past. Text-heavy exhibits illuminate the slave experience; the few artifacts, like leg shackles, are especially chilling.
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Hunting Island State Park
The Hunting Island State Park has acres of spooky maritime forest, tidal lagoons, and empty, bone-white beach. The Vietnam War scenes from Forrest Gump were filmed in the marsh, a nature-lover's dream. Campgrounds fill up quickly in summer.
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Children's Museum of South Carolina
Afraid your tot is being dumbed-down by too much cotton candy and miniature golf? This museum can help. Created for kids from 1 to 11, it has lots of interactive displays, including a doctor's examining room, a dentist's office, a science lab and a kiddie ATM.
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Charleston Tea Plantation
The agricultural Wadmalaw Island is home to Charleston Tea Plantation, America's only working tea farm. Ride a trolley through the fields, or buy prettily packaged Plantation Peach and Island Green teas in the gift shop.
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Heyward-Washington House
Heyward-Washington House, built in 1772, belonged to Thomas Heyward Jr, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and contains some lovely examples of Charleston-made mahogany furniture and the city's only preserved historic kitchen.
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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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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 prehistoric whale skeletons to slave tags and Civil War weapons.
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Brookgreen Gardens
Sixteen miles south of town on Hwy 17 S, magical Brookgreen Gardens are home to the largest collection of American sculpture in the country, set amid 9000 acres of rice plantation turned subtropical garden paradise.
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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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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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Aiken-Rhett House
The most interesting, Aiken-Rhett House is the only surviving urban plantation; it gives a fascinating look into antebellum life, including the role of slaves.
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Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon
- Charleston, USA
- Sights › Dark
Kids love the Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon, built in 1771 as a customs house and later used as a dungeon prison for pirates. Costumed guides lead tours.
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Joseph Manigault House
The three-story Joseph Manigault House was once the showpiece of a French Huguenot rice planter. Don't miss the tiny neoclassical temple in the garden.
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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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Children's Museum of the Lowcountry
The 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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