Travel Tips

Girlfriend Getaways: Searching for the Historic Past in Charleston, South Carolina

Peter Greenberg Worldwide

Gibbes Museum of Art, Photo by User:Aude

Beyond the Plantations, Art Adventures

For a different twist, try a musical introduction to the old south, head for the Circular Congregational Church, founded in 1681, 150 Meeting Street, where you can hear the history of Charleston through music every Thursday night. On your way into the hall to hear the concert, stop at the church graveyard where you’ll find headstones dating back to its founding. “The Sound of Charleston; from Gospel to Gershwin” is a musical journey that depicts “Charleston and its unique southern charm―gospel, Gershwin, jazz, pirate songs, Civil War, and light classics.” While the production values are not exactly Broadway it’s a good way to engage with the city’s history.

We could only stay for a portion of the program because we were eager to cross the street for the opening night exhibit of the paintings of local artist, Mary Whyte, at the Gibbes Museum. The Gibbes Museum is a wonderful place to experience Charleston from colonial times to the present through the eyes of painters and photographers. They offer walking tours that begin at the museum and then take you to the houses where the artists worked and the galleries that show their paintings.

New Southern Cuisine

Given that we were celebrating a birthday, my friends and I every opportunity to find places to sit down, relax and eat something. At our first stop, Sermet’s Downtown, we downed the lamb burger with caramelized onions and gorgonzola with sweet potato fries. And that was just our snack.

Cru Cafe's cuisine

Charleston has had an influx of very contemporary restaurants that have become a vibrant part of the local scene. Try Cru Cafe, 18 Pinckney, with its gourmet comfort food. I chose the four-cheese macaroni and a buttermilk fried oyster salad.

Acronyms seem to be all the trend with restaurant names. For dinner we found a clear winner at FIG―Food Is Good. I’m still dreaming about the puree of asparagus soup with pancetta, pine nuts and crème fraiche followed by the fish stew with Carolina gold rice.

At Slightly North of Broad (S.N.O.B) we sampled Chef Frank Lee’s take on shrimp and grits which is paired with sausage and ham just in case you thought the shrimp and buttery grits couldn’t stand on their own. In case there’s any doubt that this is modern cuisine, S.N.O.B. has a gluten free menu.

We ended our birthday jaunt with a toast over one last southern drink at the Peninsula Grill bar in our hotel. When we told our bartender exactly how big a birthday this was for my friend, he toasted us with “to the three loveliest girls in the bar.” (It was a slow night.)

And in return I offered a toast “To Charleston, a city where it feels perfectly right to call a lady who is post 50, a ‘girl’ and where every ‘girl’ should go to release her inner southern belle.”

For more information about Charleston, check out:

By Phyllis Berger for PeterGreenberg.com

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