US B&Bs continued (1)

Last updated at 13:14 10 March 2003


Few of them can be compared with British b&bs which, though no less welcoming, tend to provide basic comforts at the cheapest end of the accommodation scale.

A more accurate comparison would be with our inns, which is what a lot of American b&bs call themselves.

The President's Quarters offered dressing gowns and breakfast in bed, fresh fruit on arrival, and tea and cakes or wine and cheese from 4pm every day, served in the lobby - all for a 'walk-in special' price (since we had booked that day at the visitor centre) of $117 (about £73) for the room, which was cheaper than an inner-city motel would have been.

In Charleston, South Carolina, we could have taken our pick of an array of small premises, ranging from the Rutledge House Inn, built in 1763 by one of the 55 signatories of the U.S. Constitution, to the 1837 Bed And Breakfast, which is perhaps the best of the less expensive inns in the historic district.

For visitors who hanker after the kind of antebellum luxury enjoyed by Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind, try Two Meeting Street Inn. It is a confection of white-painted turrets, bow windows and verandahs with a panoramic view of the South Battery seafront, and afternoon tea 'graciously hosted by the Spell family'.

We stayed a few doors down in the Battery Carriage House Inn, in one of the 11 rooms. For $200 (£125) a night we had a four-poster bed, a whirlpool bath and breakfast which could be taken either in bed or in a small, tranquil, private garden.

Newspapers were delivered, and also made available in a sitting room next to the lobby, along with menus of all the good restaurants in Charleston.

When you are on a driving holiday in America and it begins to feel as if the highways, towns, food stops and shopping malls have emerged from the same templates, distinctiveness becomes a virtue. Each b&b that we stayed in was individual if not downright idiosyncratic.

After leaving Savannah, we drove south to St Augustine in Florida, which bills itself as the oldest town in the U.S.

We were recommended the Old Mansion Inn, a large family house surrounded by laurels and rhododendron, in the small Victorian quarter of St Augustine just outside the Spanish old town.

Mrs Kramer, an indomitable old lady, showed us into one of the two rooms she let in her annexe, its verandah overlooking a beautiful garden of lush green lawn circled by flowerbeds.

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