South Carolina: Charleston Grey Line Tour

In the rear of the Visitor Center, you will find all the tour buses lined up. We chose Grayline because they offer a 10% AAA discount. Pick up is available from your hotel, just check with your concierge. You will probably need to sign up a day in advance.

Our driver’s name was Charlie. The tour lasts 90 minutes and introduces all the major areas of interest. What it did do was give us a general sense of where everything was what might be of interest to us.

Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, led the settlement of  South Carolina in 1663. At that time, the Carolina Colony’s northern boundary was the North Carolina/Virginia border, with the Pacific Ocean to the west and St. Augustine, Florida, to the south. The first settlement was made in an area that was swampy, and by 1680, the settlement had moved to Charlestown.

 It wasn’t renamed Charleston until 1734. The original town was 4 blocks by 7 blocks and surrounded by a seawall, making it only the third walled city in North America behind St. Augustine and Quebec. A small section of the seawall is visible today in the Exchange Building.

Charleston grew too fast to stay within the walls, and by 1735, 75% of it had been removed to allow for expansion. Charleston has the fourth largest port in the United States and the second largest on the East Coast. That certainly surprised me.

Some of the people you will learn about on the tour are John C. Calhoun, Frances Marion, and Wade Hampton; I won’t ruin your fun by elaborating.

Charleston is called the holy city because of its churches; there are 400 in the county and 71 in the city itself. Of the 400, 85 are listed as historic buildings. These played into quite a large part of our tour. We learned about St. Michael and St. Philip, The French Huguenot Church, and St. Matthew German Lutheran Church. The steeple of St. Matthew Church is 268 feet tall, the tallest church building in the state. No building in Charleston is allowed to be taller than that steeple.

As we traveled through Charleston, examples of their beautiful wrought-iron work were pointed out. Skilled African-American slaves created much of this. They have left a beautiful legacy.

Among the many interesting facts we learned was that the College of Charleston has been used as the backdrop for some famous movies, like "The Patriot," which is loosely based on the life of Frances Marion. Another interesting fact is that Charleston has been hit by many major hurricanes. When you see how beautiful it is, it is even more amazing, especially since it has also suffered earthquake damage. You will learn how to identify earthquake bolts. This is an interesting tour, and I highly recommend it.