Savannah (Georgia)
We arrived in Savannah on Monday afternoon. It's a pretty long drive with heavy traffic (around 6 hours). Karen had a long video chat with the family – Caiti and Wayde in London, Jess and Dan in Chichester, and Matthew and Nadine in Jo'burg) – on Leo's 1st birthday while Gavin was navigating through a squall. Isn't What's app bloody fantastic!
The demonym for people who live here is Savannahian (now there's a new word for y'all but who can bloody say that?). It is a famous historic city made even more so by Forest Gump and the wonderful Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil (the book and the movie were reputed to have increased Savannah's tourist visitor numbers by around 46%).
We stayed at the Kimpton Brice Hotel. Location great. Structure good. The bed? Good. The bed-linen? Awful. No fitted sheet so you end up sleeping on a tiny mattress protector as the bottom sheet slips. The duvet has no cover and instead is 'sandwiched' between two flat sheets and slips out to reveal the bodily stains of previous guests.
And the bar only opens at 4pm! Gavin could be adding to their beer profits while writing this.
You can find Gavin's review on booking.com here (somewhere).
In total contrast to The Brice is the JW Marriot. They have an absolutely beautiful geode exhibit in their lobby, which is open to everyone.
So much work has gone into this. And it is beautiful. The back lighted framed pieces are also stupendous (and classy!).
Naturally we did the touristy things like catching a guided tourist tram and, a cruise down the Savannah River (which is actually the border between Georgia and South Carolina). These were both cool. But boy, hot hot hot!
Savannah is a great eating, strolling and just chilling out city. We had two great meals. The first at B.Matthew's Eatery where I had the short rib and Karen the salmon (which she pronounced as "the best meal I've had in America"). Service was great. Atmosphere lovely.
On our last night we headed to Dottie's. This is pretty cool with an open kitchen and a deli offering. The server was wonderful and made up for us being sat at the bar at the back of the restaurant/deli. Food was mostly traditional Southern food. Karen had pork loin and Gavin the sea-food jumbo accompanied by sugar-snap pea salad and maque choux.
Savannah has this thing about "to-go" cups of booze. So you basically walk into a bar and ask for whatever you want and then walk around the town getting sozzled. It's weird but nice. We never got the appeal of it. Until we did.
As we were walking home from Dottie's we (Gavin) walked into a pub called Abe's Girls. It's a tiny little bar festooned with thousands of hand drawn, of varying quality, Abe Lincoln mini-portraits.
We both ordered a draft beer and then walked out with a "to-go" cup. We found a bench in Washington Square park and sipped the rest of the beer. Just enjoying the coolness of early evening Savannah.
Savannah has 22 of these tree'd squares some of which are surrounded by beautiful old Savannah homes.
Some of these have permanently lit gas lights outside. Pretty cool (even if wasteful).
Savannah is home to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). It has over 17,000 students and is a major part of the culture and economic vibrancy of the city. Naturally there is a art supply shop. But this is not a shop. It is Blick. A massive store which can supply any aspiring sketcher, painter, calligrapher, mixed medium artist, sculptor, etc. etc. with what they need.
They also have a small gallery in an upstairs space. And we discovered the art of Gyotako.
The artist offers to preserve your fish. Just catch it. Ice it. Deliver it. She'll do the rest. And give you your filleted fish back for you to eat.
