Charleston, South Carolina

Today we begin the 532 mile journey to the nation's capital which will take us two days but first there was the opportunity for breakfast at Jack's Diner (left) and a visit to Charleston, the jewel of the state South Carolina (one of the original 13 colonies), with its treasure store of 17th and 18th century buildings.

The city was named in honour of King Charles II (the state was named in honour of his father) and it was the place where the first shot was fired in the American Civil War.

It was also, tragically, the very centre of the American domestic slave trade. When the international slave trade was abolished in 1807, slaves could no longer be brought to America from Africa, but existing slaves could and were traded like property in the southern slave-owning states until all American slaves were set free in 1863.

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The excellent Old Slave Mart Museum (right) in Charleston is housed in the very building where slaves were bought and sold right up to 1863.

It is a horrific thought, but all credit to the City of Charleston for informative and sensitive way it tells the story of the trade that disgraced this beautiful city for so long

Some pictures of historic Charleston