Charleston

Here is the first set of pictures taken on our road trip that took us to Asheville, Charleston, Savannah, and Atlanta. The route of this trip can be found here.

I will skip Asheville here (I might post some impressions of Asheville in a later post) and start with Charleston, SC. The city was founded in 1670 and has since been an important trading post. It is clearly dominated by colonial architecture and the climatic influence of the Atlantic ocean.

Our first goal was the water. This is not quite the ocean, it is rather the Cooper River. The weather was exactly as expected: warm and sunny (well, I consider 15 - 20 degree C warm in the winter).

We were all happy to see the palm trees, something I haven't seen for a long time...

It seems not only we enjoyed the nice weather at the water front.

This is a view down Broad Street with Charlestons oldest church in the background...

... and en details.

But this is not the only church, there are churches all around town although we were told that churches never outnumbered the bars.

Between Broad Street and the water front is the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon, formerly used to incarcerate priates and those who took part in the revolution against England.

These colonial style houses are quite common in Charleston and be found in many places. All of those houses have such a porch which helps keeping the inside cool in the summer.

Besides the old houses, there were also quite a few nice old cars. However, driving an old car does not prevent you from getting a ticket...

The bridge that connects Charleston with Mt Pleasant over the Cooper River at night.

Unfortunately, the second day in Charleston was not so nice anymore. It was drizzling and raining and without any sun.

However, it was not too cold and there were a lot of sailing vessels on the river.

On our way to Savannah we stopped at the beach to see the Atlantic ocean. Although it was raining, it was a great experience to be there. It is not hard to imagine how beautiful the beach will be in the summer.

The lighthouse is position at the outlet of the Cooper River into the ocean. It is not in use anymore and seems to be quite rundown but still offers a nice view.