So I unfortunately forgot my good camera. Then my backup that I always keep in my bag ran out of batteries. So I actually took most of these with a cell phone camera.

Cool story on the “Blind Tiger” bar: The name goes back to pre-Prohibition times, when Charleston had a law against imbibing of an alcoholic beverage in the same building it was purchased. To get around the law, this place would post announcements around town about a performance each midnight in which a blind tiger would do tricks. You’d pay a dollar or two at the door to get in. Then, mysteriously, each night at around 11pm, they’d announce that the blind tiger had escaped. To “make it up” to everyone, the owner would give out free drinks.

According to our tour guide, there are various “blind animal” bars in towns all cross the south with similar origins.

All in all, I really liked Charleston. Lots of terrific restaurants specializing in ridiculously rich, delicious, horrible-for-you low country food. The city’s also full of colonial, Revolutionary War, and Civil War history; art galleries; and with two rivers and an ocean harbor, lots of watery fun. The huge, 400-year-old public market in the historic area is pretty cool, too.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 12:41 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Photo Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.