Category: charleston

Charleston || Aiken-Rhett House

The Humble FabulistLeave a comment

If these walls could talk…

… they’d tell you a compelling tale of urban life in antebellum Charleston through the eyes of the powerful and wealthy Governor and Mrs. William Aiken, Jr. and the enslaved Africans who maintained their house, property, and way of life.

The place you are about to see belonged to the Aiken family for 142 years before being turned into a Museum, in 1975. Its current owners, the Historic Charleston Foundation that took over in 1995, adopted a preserved-as-found approach, which means all the rooms and surviving furnishings, including the slave quarters, have been preserved – as opposed to restored – and have not been altered since the mid 19th century.

The Aiken-Rhett House, Charleston, SC

April 10th, 2018

Charleston || A welcoming city

The Humble Fabulist2 Comments

Which one do you prefer?… is the inevitable question every time the trip to Savannah and Charleston comes up.

Well, none…, I mean BOTH!… is my answer because, honestly, these two shouldn’t be compared; I’d rather see them as an old couple, harmoniously complementing each other.

Indeed, if Savannah were a lady of a certain age and of the Victorian era, Charleston would have been an American Gentleman nearing retirement, extremely wealthy, aristocratic, with impeccable taste, elegantly sipping his spiked sweet tea from a crystal glass on his mansion’s porch – a mellow man.

There is a masculine quality about Charleston, I think you will agree, evident as we will walk past some of the city’s glorious mansions, visit a couple of impeccably preserved historic homes and learn about Charleston’s earliest colonial history as we walk through the first permanent English settlement in Carolina.

But, for now, our first impressions: an early afternoon walk on an unexpectedly cool day, through the Historic City Market to the Waterfront and its famous pineapple fountain. Surprised at first, it didn’t take long to learn that, through time, the pineapple became a symbol of friendship and hospitality, a sign often repeated throughout the city as a token of welcome.

Charleston, SC

April 9th, 2018