One Fine Day

Haaaaappy Friday! It's my favorite day of the week :) I want to get this three-day weekend off to a great start with a blog post on what we did throughout our stay in South Carolina. In case you missed it, I wrote all about our hotel stay HERE. I'm going to be talking about all the places we ate in a separate post because there are just way too many good places to cram into here. I'll start off with day 2 in Charleston, since our first "day" was kind of a wash as we didn't arrive until about 8pm.

Day 2: Sunday

This was probably my favorite day of our visit. It was a pretty long day! We woke up and walked to mass around the corner at St. Mary of the Annunciation - it's the first Catholic church in the Southeastern US, and it hasn't been changed or remodeled much at all. It was so neat to go to church in a place people attended throughout so many significant historical events...churchgoers there told us about how war was fought right outside the church doors. Anyway, it's a really beautiful place that you could appreciate even if you aren't religious.



From there, we walked over to brunch at Poogan's Porch, which is a restaurant I had heard about and was dying to try. I'll explain more about it in my food post coming up, but I absolutely loved it.

Charleston is super walkable, so we spent the rest of the day exploring on foot. After brunch we walked over to Rainbow Row, which was a must-see for me. It's a scenic avenue of pink, purple, yellow, etc. colored houses, and a lot of them having flowering plants climbing the sides. Make sure you get a photo there if you ever visit!









From there we walked over to Washington Square, which is another spot of historical significance. We actually stopped here for a break from the heat around 2 o'clock because it's a quiet, shady park, and the heat had really gotten to us by this point.





Next, we went back to our hotel for the daily wine & cheese reception...a routine we got attached to VERY quickly haha! After refreshing, we got the car and went to Sullivan's Island. LOVED this place - it's a little quieter than Charleston and is very calming. Going there will always be a cherished memory for me, because it was the first time I set foot in the Atlantic Ocean. The water was SO warm - wow I couldn't believe it! The water in the Pacific here at home is always freezing cold and I almost never go in hahah. It started storming so we couldn't stay on the beach long, but we got to see an awesome double rainbow. That was the last stop of Sunday.





Sidenote: this may sound silly, but I actually cried on our second night here because I thought about leaving and it made me so sad - that's how much I was loving Charleston.

Day 3: Monday

We started off Monday at King Street, which is the main shopping "district" (it's a street of shops and restaurants that runs for a couple of miles) and headed to The Rise coffee bar, which was fab - will share more in the next post. We shopped the stores the rest of the day and then visited Daniel Island, which is another 10-minute ride on the bridge away from downtown. I really enjoyed going there in the evening....it's kind of like Sullivan's Island, but is newer and has a little more to do.






Day 4: Tuesday

Tuesday was Folly Beach day! I had a long list of things I wanted to see/do in Charleston, and this was one of three beaches we wanted to see. It's a really clean, beautiful beach, and I just love the little beach town they've got going there. We got lunch then rented bikes from this great place called Cool Breeze - which isn't really a place...it's a super nice southern dude with a trailer haha - for only $5/hour, and we rode all around the residential neighborhood of Folly Island. Loved doing that!!










We didn't get back to downtown until the evening, and we ended up spending the rest of the night resting and going to dinner. My mom and I went in the jacuzzi, and then we all read books and watched TV and had a nice night at the hotel.

Day 5: Wednesday

This was a great day, but it was also hard because it was the last day. We made sure to get up bright and early to get the most out of our last few hours - we were heading up to Columbia then down to Georgia in the afternoon, so we only had the morning to enjoy Charleston.

We rode bikes around the historic district, which was something we wanted to do the whole trip. There are bikes by Holy Spokes rental company located all over the city, and you reserve them & rent them through an app called SoBi. We got those and then rode from King Street to the Battery, which is about a 15 minute bike ride. It was such a great way to end our visit. We almost spent the whole morning on a tour of Fort Sumter (we really wanted to see it!), but we opted for the bikes because the tour would've taken up all our time.









The last picture of this street has the stones that were originally laid back in the 1700s - I found it so fascinating!! We actually accidentally turned onto it while bike riding, and BOY was that a bumpy ride hahah. Later that day we went up to Columbia, about 2 hours from Charleston, to meet our cousins who live in Charlotte, NC. We had a nice BBQ lunch and really enjoyed it there!

I always try not to be too wordy when I write these, but it usually ends up pretty lengthy. Whether you read the whole thing or skimmed, thank you so much! I really hope you enjoyed hearing about our time in Charleston. Stay tuned for our time in Savannah, GA next! xoxo

Hello and happy Tuesday!! I am so glad to be back on here after getting back from my trip. I planned on getting this out yesterday, but thanks to jet lag I spent most of the day resting and finally made it out of the house around 4pm hahah. Anyway - I am SO excited to share all about my hotel in Charleston. I was going to write a full Charleston post, i.e. what we did, where we ate, but I think I will break it up into a couple of posts because there is just way too much to say about each. So, here goes:

I'll start by saying that I did extensive research on this city in the weeks leading up to my visit. I looked up every little detail, read reviews, did the 3D view of the streets on Google Maps - I wanted to make sure our hotel was ideal because this was our first visit. From what I gathered online, Charleston is very walkable, so having a hotel in a central location could completely dictate scheduling for the day. We quickly learned that location of your hotel is REALLY important in Charleston! I'll explain more in a bit.

With all that said, hotels there do not come cheap. Even the dive motels were pretty costly! I do want to point out, however, that it very well could have been due to the time of our trip; we went in late August, which still affords summer prices. Anyway, we had to consider finding a hotel at a (semi) reasonable price while still being in a great location. After lots and lots of studying, I found The Meeting Street Inn from several other blogs I read. You guys - this hotel holds the most special place in my heart!! It's just so charming and is unlike any hotel I've ever seen or stayed at. Similar to lots of hotels/shops/restaurants in Charleston, it used to be a house, then a theater (the whole history of it is on the website) and was eventually converted into an inn/bed & breakfast. I have hearts for eyes when I look at it!









I had seen in the photos online that only a select number of rooms have a balcony, so I called and requested one of those rooms. They said they were totally booked, so I called again a couple of weeks later. The nicest manager, Alan, upgraded us to a larger room with a balcony! Oh my gosh this took our experience to another level!! The room had formal sitting chairs, a walk-in closet, a desk, and the best part - French doors leading to a balcony with a view of the courtyard. I sat out there almost every night reading Gone with the Wind :)

Now, this is not your typical hotel room - it's nothing like a modern-day stay. Everything about it - the floors, the doors, the windows, etc. - is either original or restored. You may not like the old-fashioned feel of the room. I was obsessed with it because it was so unique, but it actually took my mom a night or two to adjust to it hahah...she was afraid of ghosts!! The four-poster canopy beds are quite different from something you'd find at a Marriott (same with the wallpaper), but I couldn't get enough of it.



My favorite thing about staying here? The breakfast & afternoon reception, which are both included in your stay. Breakfast is served each morning, and then every day from 5-6pm they serve wine and cheese in the lobby that you can enjoy on the patio/garden area. Sometimes they would also have other hors d'oeuvres that were super yummy, too. Have you ever heard of a hotel offering such a thing? I certainly haven't!! It was so nice to take a break each day and make acquaintance with other guests, as well as the staff that was such a pleasure to talk to. They also have either lemonade or Arnold Palmer (iced tea + lemonade) available for you to drink throughout the day, and tea is also there if you'd like a cup at bedtime.

I mentioned earlier that location is key - this hotel is in the heart of the city, which is right where you want to be in Charleston. We nearly stayed in Mount Pleasant, which is about 15 mins from the historic district via the Arthur Ravenal bridge, because hotels are significantly less expensive there. After spending a day in Charleston, we realized that staying in Mt. Pleasant would've made it hard to do all the things we did. Being within walking distance to everything really matters!

Meeting Street is right next to (parallel) King Street, which is the main shopping area of the city. It's also within walking distance to tons of restaurants and historic sights, and we loved being able to commute on foot. For example, Sunday morning we walked to mass about 5 mins away, then walked to brunch about 5 mins from there! I must say that the parking situation is really not the greatest, though. It's $16/per day, and the car has to be parked at a public parking lot a block away. It was a little inconvenient to have to walk to and from the car each time we drove, but it wasn't that big of a deal.

There were only two things I was a little disappointed in about our stay, which I wanted to save for the end so I wouldn't spoil the hotel for you haha. First, there is no pool, only a large spa. It's not a necessity for me, but it would have been really nice to have one since it was so hot. Second, I'm sorry to say we had a bit of a bug problem in our room. I say a "bit" because it really wasn't major. Charleston itself has a lot of bugs from the humidity, and we had some palmetto bugs (I'm squirming typing this) that crept into our closet & bathroom. I hate that it happened because the hotel was so perfect! But, gotta keep it real on here hehe. Just so you know, I hate, double hate, loath bugs entirely, and this issue wouldn't stop me from staying again. Bugs are common in the area, and it's likely it would happen at another hotel, too.

Okay, I didn't mean to ramble so much, but I really wanted to give you a look into what our stay was like! I hope I covered it all - I just know I'm going to remember something later on that I forgot to add. Please either comment or email me if you have any questions! I will be back with more on our visit to Charleston very soon! Thanks so much for reading ❤️