If there’s one thing Charleston has going for it, it’s delicious food. Briefly, my thoughts on the restaurants we visited during our week down South…

Caviar & Bananas

We made a quick stop at C & B, mostly for a drink and to get out of the heat. It’s an upscale grocery along the lines of Dean & Deluca. I indulged in one tiny chocolate peanut butter tart and it was delectable.

Magnolia’s

We headed to Magnolia’s on East Bay Street (downtown) for lunch after church on Sunday, and I loved it. Genteel atmosphere, and delicious food. I had a sinfully delicious buffalo fried chicken cobb salad. I also loved all the magnolia accents, including the door handle!

BLU Restaurant

BLU definitely wins the award for most unexpected hit. It’s a hotel restaurant, after all, and when the kids heard this, we were none too excited. Even the menu looks a bit cheesy. But the service was great, and BLU’s menu and commitment to fresh, local exciting food prepared in interesting ways was even better. We shared a variety of tapas-sized plates (I think we tried about 75% of the tapas options!), but the collective favorite was the “virtual egg” appetizer — not an egg at all, but a carved mozzarella “egg” filled with yellow tomato jus “yolk”! BLU is in Folly Beach.

Taco Boy

Taco Boy was another Folly Beach favorite, and it came highly recommended by the locals. The tacos were interesting, and good across the board, but the guacamole was a little lackluster (and our group has some huge guac fans). The chile con queso, however, was uncommonly good. Serious surfer vibe.

Slightly North of Broad (or S.N.O.B.)

S.N.O.B. was our big finale dinner, and it didn’t disappoint. The heirloom tomato salads several of us started with were excellent (as was my Kurios Farms Bibb Lettuce Salad). My entree was a bit heavy for my tastes, however. The atmosphere was delightful.

Bowen’s Island Restaurant

Bowen’s Island also follows under the “seriously atmospheric” category, though not so much for the restaurant itself (which is actually borderline rundown and covered in patron-inflicted graffiti). The views, however, are stunning. Super casual, fried seafood (or fried chicken if you’re me, ha!) is standard fare here, plus yummy hush puppies.

What do you think? Did we visit any of your favorite Charleston eateries?

Let me tell you a little bit about Folly Beach! Folly was our home base for our week in Charleston. It’s about 20-25 minutes from downtown, and definitely has a laid back, surfer vibe. There’s a very small downtown, but for the most part, it’s beaches and houses. Here’s the house we rented:

Cute, no? It was lovely, and right on the beach — about a one minute walk from our door to the ocean’s edge. We took advantage of the proximity, swimming almost every day, and some days, multiple times a day! (We even swam once at night, and once in the rain!)

This is what the beach looked like:

And here’s what it looked like at dawn:

Thanks, John, for the photo! This was the view out our back door, toward the marsh. We didn’t spend much time in that direction, because the bugs were pretty vicious.

At the tip of Folly Beach is Morris Island Lighthouse, which some of the more industrious members of our party (i.e. not me) ran to mornings.

John and I did drive/walk to it once, and we saw these pretty flowers:

The most fun thing we did in Folly Beach was a kayak tour with Charleston Outdoor Adventures. All of the Folly Beach kayak companies advertise dolphin sitings, but we were pretty skeptical. Well, we shouldn’t have been, because we saw about nine dolphins in the two hours we were out on the water! We even saw an adorable Mom and baby, and we were so close we could hear the baby chattering!!

Anyone else ever stayed in Folly Beach? What did you think? I highly recommend it!

I have a whole week of Charleston posts planned for y’all! First up I thought we’d talk about two sights we saw, Angel Oak and Middleton Plantation. Later in the week I’ll give you a tour around Folly Beach (where we stayed), share my thoughts on the food we ate, and do some intense gushing over downtown. And on Friday, I’ll share the video John and I made!

First, though, Angel Oak. Angel Oak is a live oak tree that is believed to be more than 1,500 years old — making it the oldest living organism east of the Mississippi River.

It was quite massive and impressive in person. I liked that you could walk right up to it, though they discouraged visitors from touching the trunk and limbs.

Angel Oak is so old and shaded, there are ferns growing on some of its branches!

My verdict? Definitely worth a see. Angel Oak is located on Johns Island, and was about a 25-minute drive from our house in Folly Beach. It’s easy to find and just a short walk from the parking lot to the tree, and admission is free. You can find more information before your visit here and here.

Later in the week we visited Middleton Place.

The Charleston area is FILLED with plantations, including Middleton, Boone Hall, Magnolia, and Drayton Hall. We did our research, and chose Middleton because of its varied landscape and formal gardens. Though we had nothing to compare it with (since we only visited one plantation), I would say we were all happy with our choice.

We chose to talk the self-guided tour, and followed the route outlined in the packet almost to the letter, stopping and reading the descriptions and historical background at each marked point. I’m really glad we did that, because on top of giving us interesting information, it caused us to slow down and see everything with minimal back-tracking.

There was gorgeous Spanish moss everywhere. We visited in August, but we all agreed that it would be amazing to come back in the spring when the camellia allees would be in bloom. Can you imagine the smell??

One of the most interesting things I learned from the tour is the almost perfect symmetry on which the grounds were laid out. There are a few aerial photos on the Middleton Place website that really help you see it from above, but it was evident on the ground, too.

Another thing I liked about Middleton was how varied the grounds were. There was farmland, formal gardens, rice fields, and even a swamp! The swamp was actually really beautiful.

Last but not least, Middleton Place was full of wildlife! We saw alligators, peacocks, egrets, and many other water birds.

My verdict? Highly recommended, but try to get a break on the ticket price. Tickets normally go for $22 per adult, but we were able to go for free because John’s parents sat through a (unrelated) condo seminar earlier in the day (funny, but true!). I’m not sure it would have been worth it if we had paid the full fare for all six of us.

Middleton Place is on the outskirts of Charleston, about 40 minutes from where we were staying in Folly Beach. You can read more information about it here.

Thanks to John and other family members for most of these photos!

Before summer’s over I wanted to make sure and post this little note for Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill locals. If you’ve never been to the Back Porch Music concerts at the American Tobacco Campus in Durham, you must go! The music is great (so far we’ve heard bluegrass, blues, old time, and a crazy brass + banjo mash-up), the concerts are FREE, and the American Tobacco Campus is such a neat space. The concerts are generally VERY well attended, so I would recommend arriving at 5:30 or earlier if you want to spread out your blanket on the grass (the music begins at 6pm). We like to order a pizza from nearby Mellow Mushroom, but you’re welcome to bring your own food or purchase from one of the other food stalls (including Locopops!). A few iPhone snaps from the last two years…

The remaining concerts this summer are on September 2, September 9, September 16, and September 30. Check out the full schedule and more details here!