One of the best pleasures of my traveling life is to discover hidden gems, places that don’t figure in the usual Grand Tour of tourism and that, instead, ought to be.

Charlotte, NC, is one such place. Before visiting, I had never really spent time thinking about it and, when I did, I assumed it would have been some sort of provincial town, lacking any interest or attractiveness. But boy was I wrong. Charlotte turned out to be a charming city, with the surprising characteristic of having a city centre that didn’t just host skyscrapers and parking lots, but that was lived in by locals all week round. It had streetcars, parks, sidewalks, restaurants and people moving about on their own legs – something that, on this quite snobbish side of the Atlantic, we are de facto assuming that Americans don’t do anymore.

Briefly, everything about Charlotte was a surprise and its inhabitants were part of this surprise as well. But I shall speak about them in another dispatch; for now, let’s have a look at a city made of glass, stone and metal.

click on the photos to start the slideshow.

CLT’s skyline from downtown

Something I was inclined to think existed only in films.

The Charlotte Settlers’ cemetery, a well preserved piece of history downtown.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA