Tastes of Charleston

We were glad our tour guide Denny Stiles knew the City Hall armed guard at the entrance.  It was our first morning in Charleston and we took a great leap in booking a tour guide

who, thankfully it turns out, said he didn't really dumb down his tours for kids.  Denny was
an ex-Air Force Pilot, a poet, an historian, a dad of five himself, and gave it to you straight.  So we found ourselves in places like the upstairs of the temporarily vacant city hall  

Washington portrait in between two white wall statues

chambers (the guard gave us the keys...she loved Denny) where we were able to stand, alone, inches away from an original Trumbull painting of George Washington, who had visited the city in 1791 with an enormous entourage as part of the very first of its kind American Presidential Tour.  Washington visited local dignitaries (several original signers of Declaration of Independence from Charleston), dined, drank and worshiped in the Church box of the then Royal Governor (visitors can touch the wood Washington sat in).

View of the Pulpit from church box Washington visited, Tiffany stained glass in the background

We went on to learn why the city was called the Holy City (a massive hodge podge of world religions congregated here including the countries largest synagogue), about its eclectic and often colorful architecture,

its pirate legacy (Blackbeard once patrolled the harbor), its slave-trading past, and its unprecedented importance in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars (first shots of Civil War shot in Charleston!).

As we finished our tour at the historic Battery Park,

which stands on the peninsular end of the city overlooking the harbor

we took Denny's recommendation for the best lunch in town, ducked down to the end of the park for a quick cool down near Vendue St.,

and onto SNOB, the wise-cracking title that stands for "Slightly North of Broad" (making fun of a street name often associated with food a little less than savory north of the line)

and sat down for what we decided later that week in our room at Restoration on King, our
greatest and most memorable find of where the locals eat.