Visiting Savannah

In my previous post (It Takes Clouds to Make a Glorious Beaufort Sunrise), I wrote about a trip to Beaufort, SC. After Beaufort, our party went on to explore Savannah, Georgia, which is only around 2 hours from there. Savannah is a beautiful city; I have been there twice and every time I always find something new or cool. It's a city rich with tradition and history. There are historic homes all over, historic cemeteries and historic forts. The downtown area is now one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the United States.

I took the picture above at the Colonial Park Cemetery. With Spanish moss hanging from trees, silence, old tombstones for publishers, businessmen, leaders and patriots, the cemetery is calming yet eerie at the same time. That's why I found it interesting to find people reading or walking/exercising there. Usually, cemeteries are only visited on special occasions or on November 1st. But here, people treat the place as a park.

In Savannah, I love walking on River Street and Factors' Walk, visiting the "squares" that are all over the city, having lunch at Paula Deen's The Lady and Sons, walking around to look at the unique architecture and, generally, just soaking up on all that Southern charm. An author, Nick Cohn, talked to someone in Savannah once and that person told him that the secret to living there is to live slow, to learn to drip like honey.

Remember that movie called Forrest Gump? "Life is like a box of chocolates" and all that? The scenes where he was sitting on a bench waiting for the bus were shot at Chippewa Square. Unfortunately, the bench is not there anymore. There's a replica of the bench at the museum at the Savannah Visitors' Center.

I think I actually wrote something about Savannah before, which I will look for after writing this. Some of my suggested things to see and do when in the city are below. Savannah is a city great for walking, so I suggest you stroll around, take out the camera and explore.

Must see:

• Factors' Walk
• River Street
• City Market
• Colonial Park Cemetery
• Bonaventure Park (where the statue commonly associated with Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil used to be; it's now in a museum)
• Cathedral of St. John the Baptist
• Telfair Museum of Art
• Chippewa Square
• Forsythe Park
• Historic Homes (great also if you can schedule during the Savannah Tour of Homes)
• Tybee Island (for the Tybee Island Light Station, the first lighthouse on the southern Atlantic coast)
• Mercer-Williams House

Must dos:

• Eat. There is Paula Deen's The Lady and Sons (the Sunday buffet has a good Southern spread) and other nice restaurants at the City Market.
• Visit the "squares".
• Join a ghost tour.
• Walk along River Street.
• Watch how a taffy is made. There are stores selling water taffy along River Street.
• Take pictures of the unique architectural highlights.
• Find unique water spouts. There are uniquely designed water spouts all over; I saw one shaped like a fish' head.
• See all the must-see's.