A Spring Drive Through the American South – Part Three

Continued from
A Spring Drive Through the American South – Part One and Part Two

In a journey through some of the most romantic spots the South has to offer, start in Washington, DC, and head to Charlottesville, VA along the Skyline Drive.  From Charlottesville, take the Blue Ridge Parkway to Asheville, NC.

From Asheville, continue on to graceful Charleston, South Carolina.

If you’re eager to get there within 2 hours:  Take the 126 straight to Charleston.

For a more scenic journey:  Take the 126 to Hendersonville, NC, pick up the 25-S and take it to the 11 (the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway).  Stop for a seasonal snack at Perdue’s Mountain Fruit Farm.  Continue on 11 until it crosses 26.  At Harleyville, SC, stop at the Francis Beidler National Forest and take the 1-mile boardwalk through this gem of a Lowcountry swamp.

Spend 2-3 days in Charleston, SC…if not the rest of your lives:

• Stay in a market-side room at the elegant Planter’s Inn.

• Planter’s is adjacent to the 19th-century City Market, the perfect place to pick up South Carolina-specific souvenirs like Gullah-made baskets.

• Splurge on a lunch or dinner of rich Lowcountry food at 82 Queen, a warren of garden courtyards and dark-wood rooms in the city’s French Quarter.  Start at the bar and order a real mint julep, then work your way on back.

• Ogle gorgeous antebellum homes along Battery Park,  across the Cooper River.  Admiring houses here is a rewarding pursuit: Almost every time you’re in mid-wonder about a building’s provenance, you find it has a helpful, historical plaque.

• Watch the sunset from the Rooftop Cocktail Bar overlooking the Cooper River harbor and Civil War-era Fort Sumter to see one of America’s oldest and largest shipping ports at day’s end.

• Visit the fine old (and now, slave-free) Ashley River Plantations:

• Middleton Place, home of America’s oldest landscaped gardens
• Drayton Hall, the evocative remnants of a working plantation
• Magnolia Plantation for its stunning azaleas and winding paths.

• While at Magnolia, don’t miss the Audubon Swamp Garden (pictured above) for nesting snowy egrets, gliding alligators, and ancient oaks fairly dripping with moss.