Explore the Clemson University connection to Greenville. So many interesting attractions of agricultural and historic interest await you on this beautiful campus. We’ll also visit the Historic Pendleton District, an entire town on the National Register of Historic Places.

We’ll begin at the South Carolina Botanical Gardens on the Clemson campus. Imagine 295 glorious acres of wildflower meadows, camellia collections, manicured gardens, nature trails, ponds, a 70-acre arboretum and a unique collection of 13 nature-based sculptures. While at the Gardens, we’ll drop by the Bob Campbell Geology Museum, featuring one of the largest faceted gem collections in the Southeast. Fossils, meteorites and terrestrial rocks are also on display, along with a darkroom showcasing fluorescent minerals. And you’ll come face-to-face with Clemson’s oldest Tiger, the smilodon, a saber-tooth cat skeleton, the only one of its kind in the Southeast.

Before leaving the Gardens, we’ll take a peek inside Hanover House. This impressive home was built c. 1716 in Berkeley County, SC for French Huguenot Paul de St. Julien, and named for King George I, Elector of Hanover, who befriended French Protestants and offered safe passage to America. Hanover House was moved to the Clemson campus in 1941 and again to the Botanical Gardens in 1994. Today, it serves as a monument to French Colonial architecture and is featured in Southern Living’s Historical House Collection.

Our short drive to Pendleton’s Historic District will put us on a delightful town square from a storybook life. With more than 50 buildings that date prior to 1850, every direction you look is a fascinating journey through time. We’ll enjoy lunch at Historic Farmer’s Hall Restaurant. This stately columned building was originally intended to be a new courthouse, but purchased by the Pendleton Framer’s Society in the late 1820s, and is the oldest farmer’s hall in continuous use in the nation.

The quaint white clapboard building that is St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was built 1822 and features a Jardine pipe organ that has filled the church with music since 1848. A walk through the churchyard will reveal burial sites of a Polish countess and soldiers who died in the War Between the States. We’ll visit another historic church on our trip back to Clemson. Old Stone Church was built in 1797 and was organized by Revolutionary war hero, Andrew Pickens.

Hope you’ll save room for dessert! Back on Clemson’s campus we’ll visit the ’55 Exchange. Founded as a land-grant school, Clemson has always been involved in the development of dairy products. Their world-famous blue cheese was first cured in the Stumphouse Mountain Tunnel in 1941. Southern Living describes Clemson’s vanilla ice cream as the standard by which the rest of the world’s is judged. The ’55 Exchange is the primary retail sales location for both delicacies.

Fort Hill, or John C. Calhoun Mansion was the plantation home of South Carolina’s pre-eminent statesman, John C. Calhoun from 1825 to 1858. His daughter, Anna Maria Calhoun, married Thomas Green Clemson (founder of Clemson College) in the home’s parlor in 1838. The Clemsons willed the plantation to the state for the site of an agricultural college. A boulder marks the spot of the first meeting of the original Life Trustees on May 2, 1888.

After a day of touring, we’ll freshen up and head out for an evening of dinner and shopping. The Shops of Greenridge is a new outdoor shopping promenade of more than 40 upscale specialty stores, restaurants and well-known retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Talbots, World Market and Best Buy.