Columbia is the capital of South Carolina, sitting in the centre of the state at the confluence of the Broad and Saluda rivers. It is a university city — the University of South Carolina campus anchors the downtown — with a growing food and arts scene and a Civil War history written in cannon-ball scars on the State House walls.
Much of Columbia was burned by Sherman's troops in February 1865. The South Carolina State Museum, housed in what was the world's first totally electric textile mill, covers this history with unusual depth — the Civil War galleries are among the strongest in the South. The Columbia Museum of Art downtown holds a European collection of surprising quality. The Mann-Simons Site on Richland Street documents the life of Celia Mann, a formerly enslaved woman who walked from Charleston to Columbia in the 1840s after purchasing her freedom — one of the more remarkable stories in the city.
Congaree National Park, about 20 minutes southeast of the city, is the real reason to linger. It protects the largest old-growth bottomland hardwood forest remaining in North America — tall cypress and tupelo trees over a swampy floodplain that floods several times a year and resets the ecosystem each time. The elevated boardwalk is free, uncrowded, and genuinely spectacular. Riverbanks Zoo on the Saluda River is one of the better regional zoos in the country.
The Vista district along Gervais Street has the best restaurants and the main cultural institutions. Five Points is the university neighbourhood, livelier at night.