The city of Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston, S.C. is a magnificent city, one that will draw you back repeatedly. I will try to show through pictures the different parts of the city and will begin with a brief overview. Located on Oyster Point (from the site of the west bank of the Ashley River originally), it is a low-country setting. Colonial planters had cash crops in silk, cotton, tea, and indigo to name a few, and plantations are still here to visit. The climate is humid and subtropical in August when we visited, and the day we were at Boone Hall Plantation it was 100 degrees, (the water literally ran off your body).

A huge favorite of readers is The Notebook, and it was filmed right here (along with Gone With The Wind: the entrance to Twelve Oaks in the novel). Boone Hall is the family's summer home in The Notebook for Allie. This plantation is one of America's oldest working at present, growing crops for over 300 years.  On the grounds are still nine original slave cabins that go back to the 1700's.

In 1743 Major John Boone's son decided to make an entrance to the plantation with a mile long avenue of Oak trees. He planted live oaks in rows of evenly spaced trees that have the distinctive Spanish moss draping the branches. The avenue was formed with an archway of touching branches overhead.