“Travel is like love, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed."
— Pico Iyer
Though our favorite way to see a city is on bike, we've learned the "hard" way that not all cities are conducive to casual bikers. Charleston was not one of those cities! Yay! So what did we do in Charleston? Basically ate and biked. Most of these pictures were taken on my phone while I shot with one hand and steered the handle bars with the other. I realized very quickly I was going to want to stop every 50 feet to document.
We went up and down King Street, found a few locations from The Notebook (namely The American theater), rolled through Battery Park, past Rainbow Row and weaved in and out of any neighborhood street that looked pretty! The compounded charm as we saw more and more, though it was all similar, was so endearing. A mail carrier on foot delivered letters (Not bills or marketing flyers, I'm almost sure. Handwritten letters.) to white fenced homes. "Disney-like" (I know Charleston came first ;) ) trim and color and happiness in the architecture. Spanish Moss and palm and magnolia trees. Cobblestone roads, cedar doors, salt water in the air, and horse drawn carriages. What a lovely little city, through and through!
We stayed in a suite at Belmond Charleston Place. It was truly the lap of luxury... we felt so spoiled! Charleston is one of the few US cities I have a hard time finding true "deals" for when it comes to hotels. It's always on the pricier side to really stay downtown. I'm a die-hard Priceline lover and exclusively use it for hotel booking (this isn't sponsored, by the way. This obsession was passed down from my mom to me! haha). If you don't use Priceline there is so much to learn! And there is a bit of a system to it... but we've saved thousands of dollars over the years. We rarely pay more than $70 for a 3+ star hotel... our best ever was $27 a night ;) We decided to splurge a little bit on this first-time childless anniversary trip. It was about $200 a night... which is more than we paid on our honeymoon! But check this out:
This is the Belmond website's total for August 23-25 for the suite we stayed in (a WHOPPING $1477.26):
And here's a screenshot of our receipt with Priceline for this trip. Just over $400!:
Talk about a thrill! Ha! And, man, the suite did not disappoint. We loved the light, the luxe, the colors, the views, the rooftop. It was marvelous and so special.
Coming Next: Part Three | What We Did Outside The Downtown