Greenville South Carolina
Wintering over in the Up-Country  

Every small town in America with dreams of becoming the next hot tourist/retirement spot is a Greenville Wannabee.  This is an unsubstantiated opinion by yours truly.  I can’t prove a thing, but I can say that Greenville started early, in the 1980’s, and set the aesthetic bar really high by hiring city planners, architects and landscape architects as well as embracing what were, at the time, new ideas about urban living.   They succeeded in creating, not only a truly beautiful downtown space, but a whole aesthetic for the perfect vacation.  

I’ll give credit to the 1980’s city planners but downtown Greenville already came with great bones. A booming center at the turn of the century, for industry, railroads, cotton mills and the textile business the downtown had always had an extra wide and long Main Street lined with beautiful large trees  What they did with those basic bones is what makes Greenville special.  

Main Street is an eyeful of delight.   An arching canopy of trees embraces and shades the street.  The sidewalks are invitingly wide.  Faux 1800’s era scrolled ironwork street signs and lampposts evoke gentility.  Intriguing boutiques, small stores and a multitude of restaurants, bars and coffee shops line both sides of Main Street.   Along Main St a person can find a book store, a theater, an outside amphitheater for music, music venues, plazas, and plentiful seating.  The whole gestalt creates an inviting, and buzzy atmosphere. 

This lovely shaded walk down Main Street culminates at the Reedy River.  At this point the 60 mile long Swamp Rabbit Trail, which follows the river, intersects the town.  When the Greenville Council decided to renovate their downtown, landscape architects were hired to emphasize this portion of the trail incorporating seating arrangements, stone walls, stairs, bridges and open space to provide an exquisite experience of the river and falls.  

Below the Reedy Falls bridge, park and trail, retail stores and restaurants have gently replaced warehouses and small industry, At this end of town a tidily handsome and dare I say it, cute, baseball stadium which was built in 2006 using bricks from area mills that were torn down.  It replicates Fenway Park down to the monster green wall.  Beyond this Main Street fades away, although there are some nice shops down on Augusta Ave.   

The entire town is made for meandering up and down Main Street, stopping for a bite, taking a walk along the river and then back for dinner.  There are literally no ugly spaces in the immediate downtown area of Greenville.  It is always a delight to walk it.  

Because of Covid, we walked all over Greenville, but we did not eat inside at any of the restaurants, relying mostly on take-out and cooking.  We cannot speak to the quality of food.  Nor can we talk about the theater or music venues as those were shut down.  But we did enjoy Greenville’s other attractions, which were sparsely attended in the midst of winter. 

There are a trio of museums next to the public library: The Children’s Museum, The Music Museum and the SC History Museum.  All are well worth an afternoon.  The history museum, in particular presents Greenville and the upcountry South Carolina story extremely well through interactive and holographic exhibits.  I found the history of music in the area particularly interesting.   Outside of town you can tour the BMW plant and see classic BMW’s over the years in their car museum.  That was really splendid.   

My sister Mary and I chose Greenville to hunker down till the worst of the Covid spike had passed.  This was both a wise and enormously dumb idea.  

Wise because we rented a relatively inexpensive corporate apartment downtown right next to the Swamp Rabbit Trail.  The apartment allowed us to walk the trail every day, as well as having a short walk to pick up basic supplies.  Dumb because so few people were wearing masks in our apartment building, in the city Greenville or South Carolina in general.  We did not feel safe.  While the infection and death numbers were skyrocketing in Greenville County, in town the restaurant scene was lively and hoppin. People were packed in, no social distancing, and no masks.  The stores were packed, some people wearing masks and others not.  We did not ever go inside a restaurant to eat and we had to pass on most of the boutiques because the owners were not wearing masks.  There was a fair amount of stress involved in living there. We did not feel safe unless we were outside, and even then we tended to avoid the really large Saturday and Sunday downtown crowds. Multiple times people were aggressive towards us for wearing masks.  Some stores deliberately stated on their doors that no masks were to be worn inside.  I found it distasteful and dangerous.  

Post-Covid travelers will probably not have to deal with the political culture of Greenville.  As things return to normal I would highly recommend a visit.  The weekly events will come back, the theaters and music venues will re-open.  The shopping and restaurants will be at their best and Greenville’s Main Street will always have that beautiful, tree-shaded, pedestrian-friendly aesthetic that makes it such a joy.

Anecdotal Stories & Observations 

As we have found to be the case in much of the south, there is a church on what seems like every corner. Methodist, Episcopal and Baptist are the most frequently seen.

We checked out the FM radio stations while we were there. We were genuinely shocked at the number of (highly) conservative talk radio stations broadcasting in the area. There is very little music, it is all talk radio and all very very conservative. In contrast, during our trip to Nashville, we found the radio stations to principally have music formats.

Mask wearing was not the norm.