Charleston, South Carolina. This is a beautiful city.The restaurants are amazing. The people are friendly and polite. The city was founded in 1670 as Charles Town in honour of King Charles II of England, this was England's premier southern colonial port and in 1750 was the second largest city behind Philadelphia. Many beautiful buildings remain dating back to the early 1700s. After the American revolution, the city prospered economically from cotton plantations and the work of slave labour. In the early 1800s the majority of the city was enslaved blacks. That was the case for the entire state of South Carolina, which had the highest percentage of slaves of any state in the Union. Not surprisingly, after Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860, it was South Carolina that was the first state to secede from the Union and it was here that the Civil War began when Confederate forces fired on the Union military camp of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour

Leaving the great state of Georgia

Old Charleston

Tiffany glass (1910), a late addition to St. Michael's Church built in 1761. George Washington worshipped here in 1791

Old Charleston

Philadelphia Alley (1766) one of the many passageways you come upon walking through the old town of Charleston

The island where Fort Sumter sits

Cannon of Fort Sumter

Canon positioned to fire behind Fort Sumter's protective walls

Leaving the island

Building where indoor Slave Market was held; now a museum