Charleston Trip Part 1

To celebrate five years of marriage, Tad and I were so blessed to be able to take a trip back to Charleston, SC, where we honeymooned!  We had an amazing time together.  Tad’s parents were so kind to watch all three kids for the whole weekend.  We didn’t worry about the kids at all!

We had been saving for the trip for a while, and we paid cash for everything on the trip. We got our hotel through Priceline which helped us get a great deal!

Our drive down on Thursday night was beautiful.  We got to see a gorgeous sunset and have uninterrupted conversation!

When we checked into our hotel, the woman at the front desk thought we couldn’t be older than 21.  We thought that was pretty funny!

The next morning, we left early to head into the city!  Our hotel was in North Charleston, so we had a 15-20 minute drive into Charleston (no biggie!).

We stopped by the visitor’s center first to grab a few flyers and take a fun picture!

I did TONS of research before our trip of all the best places to eat, so I had every meal and snack totally planned out.  🙂  Our first stop was Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit.

This charming little biscuit shop is tiny and adorable, and it has an excellent (well-earned!) reputation for delicious biscuits!

We got two kinds of biscuits: black pepper bacon and blackberry.  They were both flaky and buttery with unique flavors.  Tad also got a cup of French press coffee, and he says it was the best cup of coffee all weekend!

Callie’s is located on King Street, so we wandered down King for most of the morning.  There were so many fun little “alleys” and gardens!

The William Aiken house is so pretty!

I got to browse Anthropologie for eye candy and inspiration!  We browsed several other fun shops on King as well.

THEN Tad suggested we go in Urban Outfitters because the front of the building looked cool and historic.  We were pleasantly surprised to see the inside was an old theatre!

The architectural details were simply amazing.

That chandelier!!

Later we went online and read about the history of the building.  It used to be the Garden Theatre (opened in 1918) and it originally showed silent films.  The foyer was filled with hanging plants and flowers and birdcages with real songbirds!  Very fascinating.

We snuck into the photo booth for a minute.

I love the juxtaposition of industrial and ornate.  This theatre must have been elaborate in its day!

We drove to Butcher & Bee for lunch (while it was also on King St., it was not within walking distance).

Butcher and Bee has a really cool vibe with big tables, old chairs, sweet tea in mason jars, and a changing menu.

Tad got a lamb pita with Israeli salad, cabbage, and tahini.  He said it was fantastic!

I ordered a roast beef sandwich with onion jam, mayo, and chimichuri.  They make their bread in house, I believe!

This cool art display was hanging above our table.  So, overall, Butcher and Bee had delicious food and a great atmosphere and we’d go back again!

After lunch we found parking on the roof of a parking garage, so we got to take in this beautiful view of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. bridge!

Charleston is known as the Holy City because of all the church steeples!

Again, there are so many amazing gardens!

We loved all the wrought iron gates.

We walked through Philadelphia Alley several times.  It’s not wide enough for cars to use, so you can only take it in by foot.

Waterfront Park is a beautiful place to relax and enjoy a nice breeze!

This fountain was beautiful and we saw several kids playing in it.

We walked out on the pier, then we walked further down to the famous pineapple fountain.  It wasn’t turned on when we were there because they were doing work on it.

One of the many churches with beautiful architecture.

I was just in love with all the amazing typography and branding of every single restaurant and business.

Tad and I visited Paolo’s for some gelato in the afternoon!  We went there many times on our honeymoon, so it was fun to go back!

They make fresh flavors of gelato each day.

I had pink lemonade gelato and Tad had mocha.

We walked back by the William Aiken house and could see it was set up for a wedding on the grounds!  SO pretty!

Even though we just had gelato, we had walked like 8 miles so far that day, AND we were on vacation, so we went to Jeni’s for some splendid ice cream!

It was cute inside!

They have TONS of unique flavors that you won’t see at just any ice cream shoppe!

Tad and I split two scoops of black currant lambic sorbet and riesling poached pear sorbet!  They were so good together!

I definitely want to visit Jeni’s again!

While we were walking again we saw this cute patio behind a restaurant.  Looked like it would be fun to eat there!

Even the manhole covers are beautiful in Charleston.

I thought this heron gate was pretty!

Before dinner, we sat on a bench (back at the waterfront park again) and talked to the kids briefly.

Window boxes are a huge thing in Charleston.  They were all so gorgeous!

Tad and I made a few quick changes and we were ready for dinner!

I took of my chambray shirt, took my hair down, swapped out my sandals for heels, and added red lipstick and more mascara!  BAM… ready for our dinner date!!

We ate at Cypress for dinner and we enjoyed the atmosphere, professionalism of the staff, and delicious food.  We started off with artisan bread.

We ordered tableside Caesar salad, which our waiter came and prepared (dressing and all) for us!  Delicious!

For the main course, we had grilled rib eye with black truffle demi-glace! It was out of this world.  We could cut it with a butter knife!

For dessert we enjoyed peanut butter bread pudding with ice cream and toasted peanuts!  It was so sweet of them to add this little anniversary wafer.

That was the first day!  I think all told we walked ten miles on Friday.

I’ll share days 2 and 3 in future posts!