It had been a number of years since our last visit to the Charleston, SC area, eleven years to be exact so we were looking forward to exploring this beautiful city again. See our previous posts from 2014 – A City Tour Of Charleston and Continuing Our Charleston Tour On Foot.

Our home away from home for this stop would be Lake Aire RV Resort in Hollywood, SC, located just 20 minutes from historic downtown Charleston. We originally made a reservation for a premium pull thru (you can’t book a specific site, just a site type) for a four night stay. When we arrived, we were assigned to site #2. We later decided to extend our stay on that site for another 2 nights to avoid trying to find a place to stay on a weekend.

Nestled just outside of Charleston in Hollywood, a short drive from Lake Aire, along the banks of the Stono River is Serenity Park, a 7.2- acre park located at the end of Trexler Avenue in the Town of Hollywood. As we drove to the park, we passed by the Wide Awake Plantation which has an interesting history. In addition to its magnificent display of colorful rhododendron, azalea and camellia bushes in full bloom and towering Grand Live Oaks, this peaceful waterfront park has 500 feet of frontage on the river, with a dock for fishing and crabbing. Unfortunately, within a few minutes of our arrival, we were told that we would need to leave as the park was closing. Fortunately before our departure, we had time for a return visit to allow us to explore the park.

In our blog posts of 2014, we had commented about the traffic. Well, nothing much had changed, if anything it was worse than it was back then.

Our first stop was at the Charleston Visitor and Transportation Center located in the old Deans Warehouse built between 1840 and 1856 between Ann and John Streets at 375 Meeting Street in downtown Charleston. Huge visitor center with a lot of exhibits!

Funny we sat down at a bench to take a rest. When another couple sat down next to us, we started chatting. Turned out they were owners of the Patterson Insurance Agency in Westwood, the town where I grew up. Such a small world!

By now it was lunch time and we were hungry! After doing some research prior to our arrival in Charleston, a visit to Hyman’s Seafood Restaurant, a historic, multi-level institution that’s been a Charleston staple since 1890, was a must do!Hyman’s is very famous, consistently earning titles like “#1 Seafood Restaurant in the Southeast” from Southern Living readers for nearly a decade, and more recently it ranked #12 among the world’s 100 most legendary restaurants in the TasteAtlas 2024 list.

Originally opened in 1890 as a dry goods store by Jewish immigrant, W. M. Karesh. In 1924, his son-in-law Herman Hyman took over the business renaming it to the Hyman Wholesale Company. Even in the 1980s, the family continued selling dry goods. In 1986, great grandsons, Aaron and Eli Hyman opened a deli and by1987 they unveiled the full seafood restaurant.

Today, the Hyman family continues to operate this iconic restaurant. Eli Hyman (4th generation) manages the daily operations with charm and dedication, while Victor Hyman (5th generation), brings fresh energy since 2021. His brother Tobias Hyman also joined the family business after serving in the Coast Guard and law enforcement.

Being such a landmark, we knew to expect a wait, which turned out to be about 45 minutes. Once seated in the upstairs dining room, with the extensive menu, it was difficult deciding what to have. At the recommendation of our waitress, we ordered appetizers to split – the Chilean Sea Bass Croquette appetizer ($10.95), the Carolina Delight ($12.95) which was a lightly fried grit cake topped with your choice of shrimp (our choice), salmon, Chilean seabass or salmon croquette and Fried Shrimp & Pups ($9.95). Everything was delish!

Although the food was delicious, half the fun of this restaurant is that every inch of wall space has a photo of someone – celebrities, musicians, politicians, and members of various sports teams. And each table has a plaque indicating who has sat at that table. Our table was once occupied by Judge Wapner.While we were eating Eli Hyman (4th generation) stopped at our table (and every table) to chat with us to make sure we were happy with our meal. Oh, yes, we were!Before leaving we stopped to peruse the merchandise in the General Store where visitors could choose from a selection of homemade sauces, rubs, breading mixes, and Hyman’s Cookbook to bath bombs & Holy City Salt Scrubs to T-shirts and hats! No worries – our credit card stayed in our pocket!

Along the way back to where the car was parked, we stopped at the Charleston City Market, one of the nation’s oldest public markets and the cultural heart of Charleston and home to more than 300 vibrant entrepreneurs in an 18,300 square foot corridor of micro boutiques.Although the beautiful sweet grass baskets were very tempting (and very expensive), once again our credit card stayed in our pocket.

This was just the first day of exploring Charleston! Stay tuned to read about our other activities in the area!