Tell someone you’re looking for a “girlfriend getaway” and they’ll probably come up with three activities: wine, shopping and spas. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But we sent contributor Phyllis Berger to Charleston to discover a more mature version of the trip: three boomers in search of a modern Southern belle’s version of a girlfriend getaway. Think creative cocktails and new Southern cuisine, antebellum homes and trendy boutiques, and some unexpected cultural finds.
Picture three women of a particular age peering out over the veranda of their Charleston, South Carolina plantation, sipping mint juleps and eating tea cakes and you get some idea of what inspired my trip to this historic southern city. Testing the myth of the Southern belle against the reality of the new South presented a few surprises well as some unexpected rewards.
Charleston’s Historic District
Blackberry Imperial Fizz. Credit: Gin Joint
I always want to get a sense of history whenever I visit a new destination, and the challenge with Charleston is it’s all about history, so there are so many choices. But in Charleston nothing says history better than a conversation at the Gin Joint. Sitting outside in Gin Joint’s front garden patio on wrought iron chairs and bistro tables, overlooking East Bay St., I asked the waiter, “what do you have that a lady of my age might have been enjoying back in 1850? A vodka and tonic possibly?”
It turns out that you can get bourbon, tequila, scotch or gin here. But we were informed that vodka did not come to the United States until the 1940’s and the Gin Joint aims to replicate a pre-Prohibition bar when there would be no vodka to serve.
“Try a blackberry Imperial Fizz. Back then, the blackberries would have been freshly picked, add dark rum, lemon juice, raw sugar, chiseled ice…And as a nod to the 21st century, we finish it off with some sparkling rose.”
The population of Charleston is about 130,000 and to the chagrin of its residents, it is one of the fastest growing cities in the South. As a big city girl, Charleston seemed quiet and calm but when our walking tour guide saw it differently, “This isn’t quiet! There’s an ambulance down the street and a funeral just across from where we’re standing. This is chaos!”
King Street. Credit: AudeVivere
Any walk in Charleston will include a stroll on King Street, the main shopping area of the downtown area. In the middle part of King you can spend hours in local boutiques, but you’ll also find chains like The Gap, Banana Republic, and Williams Sonoma all within a few yards of each other.
King Street is filled with tourists, college students from the College of Charleston and locals who seem routed in “new” Charleston, whose most popular features include the frozen yogurt shop Yogurt Mountain and Seeking Indigo, a 6,000 square foot spa, yoga, massage, and health center.
