Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Market Place


town hall
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
Market street contains many a long covered market ending in this impressive building.

Charleston's Whale


Charleston's Whale
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
The 28 million-year-old whale skeleton now on display at The Charleston Museum is a first of its kind to be exhibited anywhere in the world — and that’s no fish story.

Oligocene-era whale remains collected anywhere else in the world have been too incomplete to attempt a full skeletal mount, says Albert Sanders, the museum’s natural science curator since 1968.

one of many bridges


one of many bridges
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
Down town Charleston has lots of water around it and spectacular bridges back to the mainland.

away from the main streets

The houses can quickly deteriorate if left for any length of time, and apparently the area is too expensive to live in for many people. Note the angle of the bacony to the house, this is quite common, the houses are often affected by earthquakes and are pulled back upright by ties through them.

Building Inspectors nightmare

Imagine a UK building Inspector passing any of this - or much of the house construction. Gas, Power and Cable all appear to hang from the outside into the street, and many house are built of what looks to be very flimsy wood.

balconies


balconies
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
Not all the houses are built sideways on - this is facing out to the street and river with balconies around two sides so it is still possible to sit in the shade.

recycling


recycling
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
A lot of the old roads are made with large cobbles, they have an interesting history, when this was part of the Empire and English ships were tied up here every day they came across 'in ballast' and emptied out here to take back whatever was required back home. This ballast was seen as a useful resource by the locals who rescued it and paved the roads! We tried to tax them on it however!

protection from slaves climbing in

The same house shows a good example of the rotating spikes installed not in deter modern day thieves but to keep out rampaging slaves in the days when they were revolting against their enslavement.

Typical house facing sideways

I've not mentioned this before but many of the house here are built 'side on', with the front of the house facing sideways. This is a good example, not the large balconies to sit and catch the breezes, if its 70 in December how hot can it be in July? What looks like a front door is more like a sie gate opening on the the lower balcony or yard.

Tiffany


Tiffany
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
And of course you could always have Tiffany glazed windows around the door.
Note they are now protected by bullet proof glass - not because of 'drive by shootings' but hurricanes.

Undecided


Undecided
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
And so you are children of rich parents who promise you a house as a wedding present, but you just cannot decide on a style......
So split the house and build one half rounded and the other square !

Charleston man made out of hats

I just love the Charleston Hat Man. You see him painted on the side of a building on the corner of Broad Street and maybe State or Church Street? At any rate, he's the little fellow made out of hats and he's so cute and clever. (from the web)

our transport


our transport
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
The city has so many of these transporting visitors that they pay a 'tax' to the city whole legislate where they can go by handing them a 'route card' before they set out. There is also a municipal 'equine' cleaning van which goes around disinfecting the streets!

Our guide was good, although listening to CSI:New York for a few months helped as that was her home town.

Church


Church
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
The main Downtown area has a large number of municipal buildings from the past 200 years, we took a guided tour on a horse drawn carriage which gave us a good look at some of them. Look at the sky and remember this was late december - temperatures in the high 60s.

Charleston - narrow house


Charleston - narrow house
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
Our last visit was to Charleston, full of historic houses, museums and sights.
There are two extremes of houses from the 1800's, narrow like this one which has been left surrounded by modern roads and buildings.

USA Christmas


USA Christmas
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
The locals make less of Christmas than we do, mind you we met a lady in Wal-Mart stocking up with '24 hundred' lights in the sale ready for next year.

We had a very good traditional English Christmas, entertaining a friend of Alison's for dinner. It was pleasant to have a few less frantic days.

Cape Fear River Walk


Fear Valley River Walk
Originally uploaded by richard.bignell.
Alison thought we ought to walk off our Christmas dinner (English with all the trimmings), so we went off to explore the local walk. Unlike a walk through the woods at home this was on a well made path complete with seats, drinking fountains and loos!
We also visited and were made very welcome by the family of the girl Alison lived with last year.

Local guide pointing out steep hill

And so we left Philadelphia after seeing such a lot of America's history - including the house where the first 'Stars and Stripes' was created.
Back on to the I95 (motorway) for an 8 hour drive back to Alison's home in Fayetteville.
We started early to avoid the Christmas traffic but by our standards of holiday traffic the roads were empty. We had an easy trip, helped by a large car, automatic gearbox and cruise control !
Luckily we bought the Christmas dinner the day before as by the time we got back the shops were shut.