4 days in Savannah, Georgia
Our journey began on a Monday morning with the sound of the alarm at the hotel ringing at 2:15AM. Yeah...it was kind of early-but we never mind getting up for fun vacation adventures!!
This was our very first airplane trip since May 2019. We cancelled Costa Rica, Turks and Caicos, Australia, and a Rhine River Cruise. We decided to just do driving trips for a while. We had this trip originally booked for September 2021-but Al's back was giving him fits, and an airport trip just wasn't happening. He was feeling better-so we rescheduled to mid March!
We flew out of Rochester, NY on Southwest. Flights were slightly delayed-and we arrived about 45 minutes late-but it was only 10:45 AM-still a fabulous time to arrive in Savannah for a full day of fun!
When we arrived we had made a plan to take Uber or Lyft to Wormsloe Historic Site, the home of the famous Avenue of the Oaks, for a drive-thru before continuing on to our hotel. Although Al's back was much better-we knew that much walking around was not going to be in the cards. We got our luggage and went outside in the beautiful sun to order the ride. We checked the Uber rate...$102. Oh well, it was what it was. Al suggested that we try Lyft...$43-so Lyft it was.
We were picked up by our Lyft driver...dear God...The back right panel of her car was all dented in, there was a hole in the windshield (rock hopefully...), the car reeked of pot smoke, and she had no mask on-after me signing my life away that we needed to "wear a mask, sit diagonal from the driver, and open all windows". We lifted all of our luggage into the car (maybe they aren't allowed to help...), and got in the car. $102 vs $43...you get what you pay for...When I think about it more clearly after the fact, I have NO CLUE why we even got in that vehicle...
Anyway-we explained to her what we wanted to do-drive to Wormsloe, drive down the 1 mile driveway and back, take pics and go to the hotel. We chatted her up a lot hoping to convince her to do as we asked...otherwise known as sucking up!!!
Bottom line-it was an AMAZING trip!!! She was a super good, careful driver. She was very friendly and drove in the perfect way for me to take pics. She made suggestions of good views. We stopped along the drive so I could get out to get a better shot. She asked me if I wanted to get out at the end and take a picture of the sign and entrance-so she pulled over and I got out and snapped the pics. We were there almost 20 minutes-and a "stop" is only supposed to be 5 minutes. We tipped her well-and Lyft even texted us to make sure "everything was OK", since we had been gone so long!!
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| Avenue of the Oaks |
It was a great beginning to our Savannah vacation. And we learned a lesson-DON'T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER... or a Lyft driver by her car and choice of recreational activities!!✌
We continued on to The Marshall House (built in 1851)-our home for 3 nights in the Historic District. We were able to check in upon our arrival not long after noon. We had an amazing balcony room-we had to climb out of our window to get to the balcony! Apparently, they used to tax buildings based on the # of doors, so many places used windows for exiting. It was pretty cool and definitely unique!! The rocking chairs on the balcony were so relaxing!! We were celebrating my birthday, and they delivered champagne and a birthday balloon to our room! The staff was southern comfort friendly!! This hotel was the best choice for us to spend our time in Savannah, with perfect location for walking anywhere.
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| Birthday Surprise |
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| This porch is gorgeous |
We wanted to grab a quick lunch before heading out to explore. Basically right next door to Marshall House is Savannah Taphouse. It is a sports bar-with lots of TV's. It is a really large space-but only a few other patrons on a Monday about 1PM. The food was good, but pretty much bar food. The server told us how super tired she still was from the St. Patrick's Day rush-that had ended the day before we arrived! We actually timed our vacay to avoid the holiday. She was very nice and helpful-and said she made a TON of $$$ during that St. Paddy's rush. We were happy for her since the St. Patrick's Day celebrations had been cancelled for the 2 previous years.
After lunch (and a well deserved beer!!) we started out for our destination of Forsyth Park. The neighborhoods were so pretty to walk through. Spanish moss (which isn't Spanish-nor is it moss!!), moss on steps, lots of people walking dogs (Savannah is super dog friendly),the sun was shining brightly and the sky was pure blue. We loved seeing the Forsyth Fountain up close and personal. It was not busy at the park-but there were people, so it was easy getting fountain pics. I was expecting green water-as we had heard that it stays green a couple weeks after St. Patrick's Day-but it was no longer green.
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| Forsyth Fountain |
One of the highlights of this park-and Savannah springtime in general, are the Azalea bushes. The week we were there should have been peak bloom-but unfortunately the week before we arrived there was a frost. It killed all blooms at the time. Luckily, all the buds were fine. So-there were flowers, but not the beauty we would have expected to see at the time of our travels. We continued on to Summerville, SC after we left Savannah-and found the exact same thing there with Azaleas.
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| Flowers of Savannah |
We walked back to the hotel a different way-new neighborhoods and Squares to explore. We sat out on our balcony for a while, chatting with others and watching the growing line at Leopold's.
Leopold's...for those who don't know...is a very famous ice cream shop that started in 1919. The ice cream is homemade-and incredible. We had heard lines were about an hour. After a while of watching the lines we decided to just go for it. We were in line waiting exactly 1 hour. But, we had great conversations with people around us. A woman came out with the QR code of the menu so people could decide before they went in, and a young man came around with cups of water for people to drink while they waited in the hot sun. If you are wondering...yes, it was absolutely worth the wait!!!
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| Leopold's |
Every night the Marshall House has 1 1/2 hour of free-flowing wine in the Library. On this particular night there was an historian talking about the history of the Marshall House. He was super interesting. And...the wine did flow and flow!! Chyna was pouring that night-and I finally had to cover my glass as she did a wonderful job of making sure everyone was happy!!
We had dinner that night at 45 Bistro, which is actually the restaurant for Marshall House. We decided that likely we were going to be tired our first night-and just hanging around the hotel was a smart idea. It is a very upscale place-with upscale prices, and excellent food. Our food was amazing-but I think the fact that we were so tired, and had been drinking so much wine that we couldn't give it all the attention that it needed!! One of the problems of vacation is eating so much good food!!
The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel. The room is super cute, with a tropical decor. We were handed a menu that we had to check off what we wanted, and our food (quiche, eggs, yogurt, etc) was delivered to us.
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| Breakfast at The Marshall House |
We had prebooked a 90 minute tour on Grayline Kelly Tours 360 degree Open Air Tour. They came to our hotel to pick us up. This was great for photo opportunities as there was no roof or windows to get in the way. They also have a shuttle good for the rest of the day-but the historic district is easily walkable so we never used it.
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| Us on the Mercedes |
We were dropped off at the Visitor Center and we walked to lunch at Crystal Beer Parlor. More wonderful neighborhood walking, and the lunch was great in a really old building. The business began in the early 1900's as a grocery store-and was one of the first in America to serve alcohol after prohibition-likely because there was already a speakeasy going on there!!!
We knew there was going to be rain the next day-so to take advantage of the nice weather we walked down to the Savannah River. We took the Savannah Belles Ferry to get a view of Savannah from the river. This is a FREE ride-and worth taking the short triangular ride across the river and back. We didn't realize we needed to exit the ferry over on the island-and they had to come get us to get off!! We were all excited being the only ones on the ferry. 😜 Businessmen were with us for the return ride...answering their phones for important calls all at the same time!!! It was actually super comical entertainment for our ride!!
After the Ferry we went to Wet Willies for Daiquiris. Savannah has Open-Container in the Historic District...you can wander around drinking!! No lids-because they don't want to encourage drinking and driving. How cool is that?? If you walk around with a beer in my city you will be arrested in a hot minute!! We brought our drinks down to the river-so good. 🍹
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| Daiquiris to go...priceless! |
Dinner that night was at Olde Pink House. We had made the reservation 4 months ahead of time. It is super hard to get into. The house was built in 1791...amazing history in this place. Our food was incredible-and they even wrote Happy Birthday greetings to me with our dessert that we ordered. We really liked our server. This is absolutely not a stuffy place at all-and the food was amazing.
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| Olde Pink House Birthday Dessert |
When we found out we were coming to Savannah we decided to see what was happening at the Historic Savannah Theater. This theater first opened in 1818!! Mamma Mia was the musical (which we have seen at least 8 times), so we bought tickets ahead of time and we were seated in our favorite location-front row center!! The theater is stunningly beautiful! The play was excellent...BUT...the ladies behind us had a running commentary going during the entire play. The woman in Row 1 on the side sang every single fabulous song at the top of her lungs. We just dealt with it-but it absolutely shocked us that it seems like people have no clue of theater etiquette (especially in the front where the actors can hear...).
Wednesday was our final day in Savannah-and it was scheduled to rain. We wanted to explore River Street a bit more before it started raining. We went very early at about 9. Wow! We loved the river area at that time of day. Super quiet-nothing is open, and there are very few people wandering around. It is cobblestone-so we were very careful where we stepped to avoid falling. We saw 2 huge container ships within about 15 minutes of each other!! They are incredibly big. We have seen them before on the St. Lawrence River in New York-but to see 2 was an absolute joy. The Talmadge Memorial Bridge is so beautiful. It was nice to see in the early morning. We walked down to see The Waving Girl Statue. We stopped in a few stores after they opened. The River Street Market Place was OK-but we were able to wander around without a big crowd! There are 2 candy stores that are incredible: Savannah's Candy Kitchen and River Street Sweets. They are both yummy, smell delicious-and you can watch candy being made. Yes, we purchased... Our favorite store was called Bob's Your Uncle. We spent some $$ in that place!! We fell in love with a brand called Life is Good-that we had never heard of before. They started as wandering T-shirt designers, sleeping in their van. In 1994-with only $78 they designed that first shirt to counter negativity. Today-they are a large company-and 10% of its profits goes to help kids in need. A cool success story!
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| Waving Girl Statue |
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| Huge Container Ships |
A slight drizzle started, so we made our way to our lunch reservation Vic's on the River. I had made a reservation about 3 weeks early-and tried to get dinner, but it was full. Lunch worked in our schedule. It is a nice place, and our food was good but not over the top great. We did have a view of the river...but it was a cloudy day.
After lunch we walked to City Market to go to the American Prohibition Museum and Speakeasy. It is a small museum-with a lot of information. Previously, we had visited the Yuengling Brewery in Pennsylvania that is the oldest brewery in the US. They have quite an interesting history with prohibition-so it was nice to go to this museum. They have wax figures-and tons of things to read to learn about prohibition. I definitely do not think I would have been able to survive Prohibition!!🍷🍻Brutal!! This is a small museum...and it started raining heavier outside-so people came in!! It got a little more difficult to read signs and move about. The ticket that we purchased included a drink at the Speakeasy. We were able to get a table to sit down-but it was getting crowded. The woman making the drinks was incredible. There were 15 different signature drinks-and she could make about 10 of them at a time...including different alcohols and shaking each one. It was fun watching her in action. After our drinks we decided to leave. It was raining pretty good by now-and we had nothing for inclement weather on a warm, almost 80 degree day. I wish we could have stayed to explore City Market. I would have gone to the Wet Willies in this area...and seen the art stores. But that will have to be for another time. We walked back to the hotel-by staying under the many over hangs we stayed fairly dry!!
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| Left: The Russian, Right: Mary Pickford |
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| American Prohibition Museum |
Sitting out on the balcony was nice in the rain, as there was no wind to blow it in, and it was warm. Also-the construction stopped for a while so there was no construction noise!
At 5:00 we headed down to the Wine Hour. That night we enjoyed a harpist that played a lot of modern music. She was good. We had planned to go to dinner on the River-but since it was still raining we thought we might stay a little closer to the hotel (although we were really super close to the river also!) Chyna suggested we try Chive, which was located right down the street. They don't take reservations, and the wait is usually about an hour. We borrowed an umbrella from the hotel (it had stopped raining, and never rained until after we returned from dinner) and headed out about 6:15.
We had no wait...and I will say that this was absolutely my favorite meal of our entire trip. It was incredible-and the BEST She-Crab Soup of the 4 that we had in Savannah for comparison purposes. These pictures say it all-and our server was fantastic!! It totally worked out-and we were glad we ended up here to end our Savannah trip!
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| Top: Oceans Five Bottom: Lobster Risotto |
We returned to our hotel and enjoyed the champagne out on the balcony.
That night before going to bed I preordered the Uber we needed for the next day to get to the rental car place that was about 6 miles away.
We wondered where the Uber was...so I pulled up the app, and didn't see any information that it was on the way. I ended up booking another Uber as Lyft was going to take too long to arrive. The price went from the $15 I was quoted the night before (forgot to save the email...), to $46!!!👿 To go 6 miles... At that point we didn't have any options.
We grabbed the rental and made our way to Summerville, SC. That night...about 9 PM I got a phone call from Uber- in Savannah-wondering where I was. DUH...I had ordered for 9PM instead of 9AM. Grrrrrr....and, they charged me $6.50 for not cancelling (so now $53 plus tip to go 6 miles...)!!! It's totally funny now-and not my usual way of doing things, but at least it explained where the Uber guy was at 9AM. 🤣🤣🤣
Savannah is a very old, historic city that was prominent during Prohibition for doing things their own way...Speakeasys and Underground Hootch. I think I would have liked to have been there then!! Savannah is a fun city-a bit more partyish than Charleston, but has that same "Southern Kindness" that we love so much. The transportation (Free DOT busses, the Free Downtowner and available Pedicabs) are all incredible. We never used any of them, as Al's back was doing very well. But-we were grateful that Savannah takes care of its tourists in a big way. There were so many benches to sit on-given the 22 squares, and inviting chairs placed outside businesses. We visit a lot of cities, and I feel that Savannah is so compact in the Historic District that it makes it a great place to visit and not need to have any kind of transportation. We loved our visit, and want to return some day!
Travel Tip from Laurie We started buying Tea Towels as a souvenir to remember our visits to a new area. They are super easily packable...and a nice reminder of a great trip!
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