The South - Eastern USA - page 666

enjoy long dinners on the verandah. It's also a place for romance, everywhere you turn
another blushing bride is standing on the steps of yet another charming church.
In the high season the scent of gardenia and honeysuckle mixes with the tang of horse
from the aforementioned carriage tours that clip-clop down the cobblestones. In winter
the weather is milder and the crowds thinner, making Charleston a great bet for off-sea-
son travel.
History
Well before the Revolutionary War, Charles Towne (named for Charles II) was one of the
busiest ports on the eastern seaboard, the center of a prosperous rice-growing and trading
colony. With influences from the West Indies and Africa, France and other European
countries, it became a cosmopolitan city, often compared to New Orleans.
The first shots of the Civil War rang out at Fort Sumter, in Charleston's harbor. After
the war, as the labor-intensive rice plantations became uneconomical without slave labor,
the city's importance declined. But much of the town's historic fabric remains, to the de-
light of more than four million tourists every year.
Sights
Historic District
The quarter south of Beaufain and Hasell Sts has the bulk of the antebellum mansions,
shops, bars and cafes. At the southernmost tip of the peninsula are the antebellum man-
sions of the Battery.
Gateway Walk CHURCHES
Long a culturally diverse city, Charleston gave refuge to persecuted French Protestants,
Baptists and Jews over the years and earned the nickname the 'Holy City' for its abund-
ance of houses of worship. The Gateway Walk, a little-known garden path between Arch-
dale St and Philadelphia Alley, connects four of the city's most beautiful historic
churches: the white-columned St John's Lutheran Church (5 Clifford St) , the Gothic
Revival Unitarian Church (4 Archdale St) , the striking Romanesque Circular Congrega-
tional Church (150 Meeting St) originally founded in 1681; and St Philip's Church (146
Church St) , with its picturesque steeple and 17th-century graveyard, parts of which were
once reserved for 'strangers and transient white persons.'