Horses, Houses and Hunger

The curtain was ringing down toward the end of the day so we determined we needed to take the horse tour. We got lucky and got a seat just behind the southern area of the north bound horse. This gave us the best view of the scenery of Charleston as well as the horse’s three relief stops and one bowel movement. I looked on the bright side that this likely gave us a smell of authenticity for Charleston before cars began fouling the air. Of course, the authentic horsey smell was pretty foul as this was one well watered Clydesdale.

The tour industry is highly regulated in Charleston. Our guide explained the historical test he had to take to get his job and the fact that only so many horse drawn vehicles could be downtown at any one time. There was a lottery system in play where the driver is given the route by chance. We were lucky as our number drawn included the historical homes North and South of Broad as well as the Battery.

A Whole Lotta Pineapples

Charleston is considered one of the most beautiful and elegant cities in the land, partly because of the collision of two rivers with the Atlantic Ocean, somewhat due to the cobblestone streets and partly because there is so much history woven in. But the main reason for Charleston’s prominence in elegant conversations are the houses our horse drawn carriage paraded us past. Not as large as Asheville’s Biltmore, but just as opulent on smaller urban plots and more tastefully done because of course the Vanderbilts were…you know, gauche Yankees.

Our guide did a good job explaining some of traditions and idiosyncrasies of Charleston. He explained why it’s called the “Holy City” because of all the church steeples, which served as great aiming points for Federal naval artillery during the Civil War and the tour was dotted with them. Seems like cannonballs weren’t the biggest threat to the Charleston churches as every one we passed seemed to have at least two fires in the illustrious history.

We learned about the Pineapple symbol, which our guide said the polite explanation was a married woman placed the fruit on her fence to notify the neighbors her husband was home and she was open to entertain. The naughty explanation was the pineapple advised the married woman’s lover her husband was home and she was no longer open to entertain. Whichever explanation was valid, the pineapple became a symbol of something special and adorns the ironwork erected on these homes after the civil war to replace the fences melted down for musket balls for the war.

Our guide explained the significance of Broad Street. If a home was North of Broad the owner was part of the “have more” class in Charleston, but if a home was South of Broad the owner was one of the “have more than God” class. I guess in our modern parlance the 1% is North of Broad and the ½ % of the richest Americans reside South of Broad.

The pony tour also took us to Four Corners of Law, the intersection of Broad & Meeting Streets. This name was coined by Robert Ripley of “Believe It or Not” fame. On the southeast corner is God’s Law, represented regally by St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, which contains the graves of John Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, signers of the Declaration of Independence. On the Northeast corner is Local Law represented by the Charleston City Hall. On the Northwest Side is County Law, represented by the Charleston County Courthouse. Finally, on the Southwest corner is Federal Law, represented by the U.S. Post Office and Federal Courthouse.

On a side jaunt down Queen Street, the tour took us past three restaurants that looked intriguing since dinnertime was coming, Poogan’s Porch, Husk and 82 Queen. As the carriage slowly pulled by I was able to look into 82 Queen, which revealed a long, somewhat mysterious hallway leading to the reservations desk. I was reminded to the Court of Two Sisters Restaurant in New Orleans for some reason and so our dinner destination was chosen.

There’s an app for everything these days and Open Table got us an early reservation. Hindsight being 20/20 we probably should have packed an extra set of clothes for dinner as we may have been a bit casual for 82 Queen. Nevertheless, the restaurant was good sports about our dress though we were exiled to an outside courtyard where we began dining alone until other refugees appeared. The meal was excellent as expected for the price and our waiter gave us a tip about free after dinner entertainment at the rooftop restaurant of the Vendue Inn.

The Vendue Inn rooftop proved to be as interesting as advertised by our waiter. Our table was at steeple level for historic Charleston and the whole city unfolded in the late evening cool. We could see the ships coming in on the harbor and some pretty interesting characters among the tourists so people watching kept us entertained. We made up lives for some of these people based on their looks, actions and mannerisms.

We finally decided we didn’t really want dessert at the Vendue as ice cream wasn’t on the menu. Our phone revealed an Italian ice/ice cream shop a couple blocks away by Waterfront Park, so we departed the Vendue down the elevator and walked over to get the dessert for which our mouths were set.

We walked the block to Waterfront Park with our heaping helpings of ice cream and ended our day in the same place it had started. I’ve already covered our evening experience at Waterfront in an earlier post, so I’ll end this one with the reminder the bench at Waterfront was the spawning ground for a great idea.

Jan on the Vendue Inn Roof