Charleston: the colourful houses of Rainbow Row

Among the United States cities with the highest concentration of antebellum architecture, Charleston also preserves the fort where the first shots of the American Civil War were fired in 1861.

The center, with the colorful houses of Rainbow Row, is comfortably explored on foot.

Thirteen pastel-colored houses lined up along East Bay Street make up the famous Rainbow Row, restored starting in the nineteen-thirties.

Descending toward the tip of the peninsula you reach The Battery, a fortified promenade with period cannons and views of Charleston Harbor, surrounded by some of the city's oldest houses.

From the harbor departs the ferry to Fort Sumter, where on April 12, 1861 the first shots of the American Civil War were fired.

Toward evening, King Street, the main shopping and dining street, closes the day between historic shops and restaurants facing the street, animated late into the night.

The houses of Rainbow Row were originally commercial warehouses on the waterfront, fallen into disrepair before being transformed into privately-colored dwellings beginning in the 1930s.

Fort Sumter withstood over a year of siege by Union forces after falling into Confederate hands, becoming one of the most enduring symbols of the entire Civil War.