oh wait.. wrong song... wrong state.
I am talking about the lovely Savannah, Georgia.
Savannah Savannah Savannah.
What a city! This is one we would like to visit again for sure. As we have taken to keeping an eye on the weather, we knew it was going to absolutely pour buckets of rain at the campsite so even though we are 2 hours from Savannah we figured it would be a good day to go instead of being locked in the trailer all day.
Turns out it absolutely poured buckets of rain in Savannah too.
Oh well! We still had a great time!
Savannah was drawn out in 1733 by a couple of British dudes (Ogelthorpe and Bull). It was a fabulous city plan.
The (old) city eventually was made up of 24 squares (21 still exist and they are rebuilding the "lost" 3).
These squares have a center "park" that is surrounded on the east and west sides by public trust buildings and then that was surrounded by residences (called tythes). Each of the squares has a different name and is dedicated to someone/some cause and has benches, fountains, statues, etc.
One of the first squares we came to had a statue with a hexagonal base on it describing the reason for the statue.
This first statue honored a regiment of soldiers of African descent who fought to help capture Savannah back from the British during the Revolutionary war. These solders were from Haiti and among soldiers actually from many other countries came to assist the "rebel" American's in their fight for liberty. Hmmm. Had never heard that before. Seems we miss a lot in public school history classes.
Anyway, each of the center parks of the squares are very pretty.
It makes for a beautiful, walkable, drivable, enjoyable historic part of the city. The shops, boutiques, restaurants, everywhere and the old houses are wonderful. What was literally a damper on the whole situation for us was the rain.
The rain was running down the old gutter system in this building so fast it was shooting out upward into the sky like a sprinkler!
Check out the downspouts!
While we braved it with a huge golf umbrella we did stick closer to the retail places as opposed to tour houses etc. So if we come back, the plan will be to bring our bikes on a sunny day and ride around and enjoy the architecture, tours, and museums.
I did get to say hello to Santa!
We wandered past Paula Deen's The Lady and Sons restaurant (we had already eaten) and I ducked into their store real quickly. That was kind of fun.
We floated down to the waterfront, along the cobblestones, to the waterfront where we saw the waving girl.
The waving girl... Florence Martus (1868 - 1943)... was the lighthouse keeper's sister and she took to waving to all incoming and out going ships. In the day with a hanky/scarf and then in the night with a lantern. She began waving in 1887 and stopped waving in 1931. She waved for forty years. Some folks tried to embellish the story by saying she wanted to be the first to greet a husband or a lost love. That was not the case though apparently. I guess the fact is she was just lonely, and was constantly seen with her collie companion... and probably frankly was a tad bit... umm... ecentric. Many years after she died the city still loved the legend so much they had a statue made of her and her collie which stands out on the waterfront greeting all the ships once again.
Our last stop of the day was the one and only Scottish pub where I got a lesson in Single Malt Scotch by David and a kilt-wearing, single malt scotch expert bartender.
Heh... nah just kidding. He was wearing a kilt... but he did not have the broadsword handy only a bottle of 16 year old Bruichladdich.
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