Charms of Charleston

CHARLESTON, SC — Two mules pull our 16-passenger carriage along Horlbeck Alley onto King Street. “We are now at the highest ridge in Charleston,” says our driver and guide. “It’s 12 feet above sea level here.”

So, that explains why this area of South Carolina is called the Low Country. You can learn some interesting facts by taking one of these tours. Stephen Reynolds, the young man conducting our Palmetto Carriage tour, has an undergraduate degree in history and 27 hours of postgraduate credits in Southern history. He clearly enjoys the subject.

As the sights roll slowly by us, he explains that King Charles II of England granted a large tract of land in the New World to a group of eight men as a reward for their loyalty to the crown during the interregnum of the Oliver Cromwell years.

They named it Carolina, honoring the king with the Latin-inspired term that references the two Charleses who preceded and followed Cromwell. They then named this city Charles Towne after Charles II; the name evolved into Charleston after the American Revolution.

Charleston is the oldest major English settlement south of Virginia, Mr. Reynolds tells us. Some of the buildings are about 300 years old, and the city played significant roles in the American Revolution and the Civil War.

“Know what they call that part of a house here in Charleston?” he asks, gesturing toward what some of us call a porch and others call a veranda. “It’s a piazza,” he tells us, “after the Italian word for an open gathering spot, often adorned with columns.”

The facts and quirks of Charleston are very interesting to know. It is, we have concluded after two visits within a year, one of the very best U.S. cities as a travel destination.

Walk around the historic district here and delight in the architecture of the Colonial and antebellum eras; observe the cobblestone lanes and the gas lanterns on posts and along walls; admire the wrought-iron fences, gates and balconies; enjoy the lovely landscaping and take pleasure in the colors, and it is easy to understand why Charleston is ranked as one of the country’s best-preserved cities. This came about partly by accident and equally by design.

From its early Colonial days until the Civil War, the great wealth generated from area plantations made Charleston by far the most prosperous area in the American Colonies. The rich poured much of their money into building grand houses. After the Civil War, however, no one could afford to tear down the old houses or build new ones. This is the same reason that Natchez, Miss., which ranked high in per-capita millionaires before the war and fell on hard times after the bloody conflict, is celebrated for its historic preservation.

That’s the accidental part. The design part came about in the early 1920s, when Charleston was preparing to demolish many structures in what is now the historic sector. The city was planning to install wider roads to accommodate the growing popularity of the automobile. This touched off a protracted resistance campaign, led by the city’s aristocracy, which culminated in Charleston’s becoming the first American city to adopt a zoning ordinance preserving and protecting historic structures.

In 1931, the city set aside 23 square blocks of its Lower Peninsula area as a historic district in which exterior alterations would require approval from the city’s board of architectural review. “Folks who live in this part of town like to quip that they own the inside of their house but the architectural review board owns the outside,” Mr. Reynolds tells us.

Though a carriage tour can give a fine overview of this lovely city, walking around is the way to appreciate its appeal. A number of good walking tours are offered, but we choose to do our walking at our own pace.

The old City Market area, the starting point for most of the carriage tours, is also a good place to begin a walking tour. Take time to explore this market. The stalls of its brick sheds once drew locals shopping for meat, fish, fruits and vegetables and now draw tourists shopping for gifts and souvenirs.

At one stall, we talk with a man selling cork purses and wallets made in Portugal; they are extraordinary. At a shop just across North Market Street, we stock up on some fine pralines, a confection made with nuts, usually pecans, and sugar syrup. Invented in France and usually associated with New Orleans, pralines also are very popular in Old South towns such as Charleston and Savannah, Ga.

Another food tourists like to buy here is the benne-seed wafer, a treat that can be traced to Africa. These tasty cookies made with sesame seeds (“benne” is a West African word for sesame seeds) are high in protein and B vitamins and low in carbohydrates.

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