Streetside Sights & Scenes: Charleston!

We are finishing off our South Carolina coverage with a look at some of the non-supermarket things I saw around this area. I always enjoy this, because I think it gives us a better idea of the whole area, plus we get to see some interesting scenery and places we wouldn't otherwise see. We'll be passing through the area in roughly the same progression as we saw in the stores...

North Charleston

We didn't stop by any grocery stores in North Charleston, but it has a pleasant small business district along Montague Avenue. The business district was developed in the early 20th century, but not much happened here as the area shifted to become more industrial. Recently, there's been a lot of redevelopment on this strip, with lots of excellent restaurants opening up shop. Fratello's Italian Tavern was not only an excellent restaurant with exceptional food, but also in a very interesting building.

The interior we see here was constructed as a post office in the late 1800s or early 1900s. After cycling through a few various other tenants, Fratello's has restored the space with vintage fixtures and decor, mostly brought in from elsewhere. The bar, at the back of the restaurant, is particularly beautiful...

And that's all for North Charleston. Now into downtown!

Downtown Charleston

We begin with some interesting retail and other such buildings downtown, such as the beautiful above art deco movie theater, the Riviera. This building has since been repurposed into retail, but has been beautifully maintained.

Another art deco-era beauty is S. H. Kress & Co, now home to H&M. These are both along King Street, the main business/retail street. I don't recall what store this was in, but here's the interior of a store selling various lights and lamps that I thought was gorgeous...

And back to the historical buildings, this one the closed Morris Sokol Furniture.

And one more theater for good measure, this one is the American. Simpler and smaller, but still fully equipped with the beautiful marquee.

Just outside of downtown is this cool building complete with a tower, now home to a few small businesses in West Ashley. While it's recently been renovated into several small storefronts, it was previously one large thrift store, and I'm fairly certain it was built as a supermarket. I mean, come on -- look at this. If I had gotten a better (and daytime, perhaps) picture, I would've covered it as a probable former supermarket.

Now on to some beautiful residential buildings. Here we are in the French Quarter, for what I believe to be part of Rainbow Row.

And there are lots of historical buildings around the city of various kinds and eras.

Now, onto the water. Below we see Colonial Lake, a (presumably) man-made lake in the western part of downtown near Burbage's.

But that's not exactly the waterfront you come to Charleston to see, so here's a look at one of Charleston's waterfronts, looking up (inland) the Cooper River towards the Arthur Ravenel Memorial Bridge, which takes you from Charleston to Mount Pleasant.

That shot comes from one of the viewing decks of the Charleston Aquarium, which has an outdoor exhibit with that view.

And inside, I thought it was worth sharing this enormous, lit sculpture of a giant squid inside the aquarium. It's hanging above a staircase and is extremely impressive in person.

We return to the Charleston waterfront for these shots, looking east (above), and south towards James Island and then the Atlantic ocean (below).

This is from the Battery, at the far southeastern corner of the city which is a peninsula.

Folly Beach

More great coastline views come from Folly Beach, to the south of the city.

What we don't entirely capture in these pictures is that the beach was in fact quite cold this day (it was January, after all, and even though it's pretty warm here in the winter there are still cold days). But I caught a very nice sunset at Folly Beach...

Kiawah Island

Up next are a few shots from on Kiawah Island itself. 

There are several lagoons and other bodies of water on Kiawah and between Kiawah and the other islands or the mainland, but the eastern side of the island faces the Atlantic Ocean.

Again, you'll see the beaches quite empty in these photos because they were all taken in January.

Above, we're looking northeast and below we're looking southwest.

Folly Island is northeast of Kiawah, and Wadmalaw is southwest.

And here we're looking straight out into the Atlantic!

The sand is actually hard-packed enough on much of Kiawah's coastline that you can actually ride a bicycle on it (which I did -- it was fun).

And a sunset shot from the car window between Johns and Kiawah Islands...

Wadmalaw Island

It's worth making a trip out to Wadmalaw Island not just for HUM Grocery, but for its main attraction -- the Charleston Tea Plantation. It's the only place in the United States that tea is grown commercially, and it's owned by Bigelow Tea. Standard Bigelow tea is typically a blend of teas from Charleston, China, and elsewhere, but in this area at some locations you can purchase their American Classic Tea, which is exclusively tea grown on the Charleston Tea Plantation.

As a big tea drinker, this was quite exciting for me.

The tea plantation is fully operational today (just, again, not in season in the winter) but interestingly enough is a relatively new plantation, having existed only since the 1970s.

In harvesting the tea, only the topmost leaves on each plant are harvested. They then go through processing in the main building on the plantation.

These are rows of nothing but tea leaves! And if you're wondering how they're harvested...

The Charleston Tea Plantation actually has its own, custom-built tea harvester machine. As a lover of tea and heavy equipment, this was very cool for me to see. You can see how high the machine is off the ground, and that's by design -- for it to only trim the very tops of the leaves. Now into the main building...

I can't stand guided tours most of the time, but here there's actually a guided video tour of the facility so that you watch videos at each stop in your tour which I very much enjoyed. This is where the tea is processed in the main building. These machines dry and prepare the tea for bagging through a multi-step system. Much like bell peppers (how the different colors are just different stages of ripeness), green and black tea come from the same leaves and are just processed differently.

Again, because it was off-season, the machinery was not in use at the time of my visit. You still get to see the whole process on video, though. And outside was something fun too...

A reproduction of the world's largest sweet tea! This is roughly equivalent to my daily consumption of iced tea. (I do drink mostly unsweetened though, which I know is my northeastern upbringing...)

And as I mentioned in the HUM Grocery post, I ate my sandwich from there out by the water. Here's where I ate it. Not a bad view!

Hollywood

Our final stop is somewhere we didn't see any grocery stores because, well, there weren't any.

This former rice plantation in Hollywood, to the northwest of Wadmalaw Island on the mainland, has been converted into a nature preserve. It's not too large, but it's certainly a beautiful spot for a short hike.

With, of course, totally different flora and fauna than I'm used to up north. Speaking of up north, tomorrow we're going to jump about 425 miles northeast to Virginia for our next group of stores!