We spent the day in and around Charleston, South Carolina.  This is one of my favourite cities in the south.   In the morning we walked for about 2 1/2 hours in the historic area.  Fortunately we got back to the car just as the heavy rain came.  Unfortunately most of the afternoon was cloudy with on and off showers until it cleared up around 4 PM.  

The  charming houses in the Charleston historic district have beautiful gardens.  I took this shot through a gate looking in at the private driveway.  

Here is a picture of an inside courtyard which I thought was quite pretty.

After lunch we drove along East Bay Avenue.  I love how so many of the colourful houses have window boxes.  You can see the reflection of the trees in the windows.  

After our drive through the historic area ( we couldn't possible have walked the entire area in the morning and we still wanted to see more of the houses) we headed to the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.   It is the oldest public garden in the United states and has been opened since 1870.  As soon as we arrived, the rain started so we didn't stay.  However, I did take a couple of pictures of the interesting swamps.  Hopefully we will get a chance to visit there tomorrow.

Once again, there wasn't much of a sunset, even though we were at the beach on Sullivan's Island.  So I settled for taking pictures of the Ravenel Bridge from Patriot's Point.  You can see the lights of Charleston in the background in the second shot.

The last shot of the day was taken of the USS Yorktown Aircraft Carrier.  This carrier served in World War II and is now a tourist attraction.