Savannah, Georgia

6th May – 10th May 2023

A visit to the alluring southern city of Savannah has always been high on our list of things to do during our travels around the USA. In general we try and avoid big cities as many of them are very car-centric, road-dominated, commercialised jungles with a preponderance of strip malls and no real historic downtown; no real individualised flavour. Then there are the logistics of finding an RV park close enough to a city centre and being able to use either our feet, our bikes, public transport or short Uber trips to complete our journey. Mostly it is visiting the tiny cities and small towns of America that fullfills these criteria and thus gives us the most joy. There have been a few noteable exceptions to these rather sweeping statements, however: like New Orleans which had an RV park on the edge of the French Quarter so we could walk to the action; like Chicago that has an enormous truck park that accepted RVs only a few miles Uber ride from downtown; like Sam’s Town Casino RV park in Las Vegas that has a free shuttle to The Strip; like Austin, Texas which was just across the river from the CBD. Savannah joined these ranks. We found a charming, underdeveloped, wooded, family run park called Biltmore, which was only about four miles from the historic downtown. Our transport solutions were to be a combination a bus ride to get into town and Ubers to get home.

I feel that I must insert some fun facts about Savannah before we go any further:

• Founded in 1733 it is said to be America’s first planned city, with its streets and public squares arranged in a grid pattern. This is standard today but was cutting edge design in its time. Of the 24 original squares, 22 still exist today. Full of mature trees laden with the ubiquitous spanish moss and a variety of statues, monuments and fountains thay are a massive part of Savannah’s charm.
• It is the USA’s fourth busiest shipping port and many of Savannah’s surviving original cobbled and stone streets are constructed from the ballast stones transported here from all over the world in otherwise empty ships. These were unloaded and exchanged for cargo. Reuse and recycle is not a new thing people.
• In 1819 a house in Savannah was the first in the USA to be fitted with indoor plumbing.
• The movie Forrest Gump was filmed here.
• Lastly, and not fun at all: In March of 1857, Savannah had the largest sale of human beings in the history of the USA. The auction of enslaved people lasted two whole days and took place at a racetrack in the city. During those days it was said to be pouring rain the whole time because the heavens were so sad. and so was named The Weeping Time’. For all its beauty, its wealth and success was built at the expense of many lives.
• There is a statue down on the riverfront immortalising Florence Martus, a Savannahian that lived from 1868 to 1943. The unmarried daughter and sister of lighthouse keepers she spent much of her life living with her family in lonely lighthouse outposts. She dedicated 44 years of her life waving farewells and welcomes to all the passing ships that used the port, using a hankerchief in the day and a lantern at night. Legend tells that she did this as she was searching for a lost love and likely waved at over 50,000 ships, many of which would reply to her using their horns.

As previously mentioned, we were going to be sharing our Savannah experience with our good friends Greg and Gigi who were flying in from New York. They were coming in on Sunday afternoon and staying two nights at a hotel in town, very keen to help us soak up the delights of this laconic and charming city. (When I say ‘delights’ I obviously mean mostly cocktails and southern cuisine.) We arrived at the RV park the day before, on the Saturday and checked in with our hosts, an older married couple who had inherited the site from her father. The reception office for the park was co-located in the on-site Antiques and Collectibles shop. This was a veritable warehouse sized establishment filled with an array of dusty and esoteric items and seemingly no customers at all. Our site was massive and shaded by some lovely old trees. It did not feel like we were in a city.

On Sunday afternoon, dressed for a classy evening of eating and drinking in town, we headed to the nearest bus stop which was conveniently located just outside the RV park. We were armed with all the relevant information on bus times, routes and stops and we had, as I had discovered necessary, the cash in correct change for our journey of 25 minutes – a whole $1.50 each. To say that we looked slightly out of place standing in our glad rags at a bus stop on a grass verge next to a barbed wire topped chain link fence alongside a busy four lane main road that runs through a depressed suburb of Savannah waiting for the Number 17 would probably be a reasonable understatement. It arrived on time, was new and clean and even had a display informing us of our stops. No complaints at all. It would be truthful to say that we travelled through some of the less salubrious and photogenic areas of the outskirts of Savannah to get to the historic district but we soon arrived at our stop in town. From there it was only a short stroll down some leafy streets lined with handsome town houses until we got to Forsyth Park. We were a bit early to meet Greg & Gigi at their hotel, which was on the other side of this park, one of the jewels in Savannah’s crown, so we looked for somewhere to grab a cold can and watch the world go by for a bit to kill time.

It soon became apparent that there ‘was something going on’ in the park. Something dogggy. Now the British minds can drag themselves out of the gutter straight away: I am being litteral here. It was a Doggy Carnival day. There were dogs everywhere. Dogs of all shapes and sizes and fur varietals. Dogs in clothes, dogs in strollers, dogs being carried, dogs in boots, dogs with fur paint motifs, some dogs were just normal looking. There were dog treat stalls, dog play areas, dog paraphernalia stalls, dog painting stalls. What I did not see was one single unpicked-up poop, or any impressive dog fights. Amazing. We plonked ourself on a wall to soak up the spectacle and automatically started a game of ‘Cool Dog, Fool’s Dog‘. Now this is a bit judgy and is from the same playbook as our airport departure lounge (or any other good people watching venue) game ‘Hit or Miss‘ in which we comment (quietly to each other – not out loud so as to cause tears or fights) purely on how people are dressed. Purile and very entertaining. Anyway. ‘Cool Dog, Fool’s Dog‘ comes from a place of a love of dogs and the starting position that ALL DOGS ARE CUTE. The game is more a commentary of an owner’s decision making when chosing a dog and how they present it to the world. So some examples of basic ‘Fools Dog’ criteria would be: Dog clothes when unecessary for extreme cold, keeping full/double coated dogs in hot climates, spending crazy money to buy puppies of breeds with significant health issues from overbreeding thus perpetuating the problem, dog body modifications, use of a fierce looking dog to make you look like a gangster, dogs so tiny that they can’t keep up with the slow walking pace of a human, massive or high energy working dogs kept in RVs or small appartments that never get to stretch their legs. You get the drift. You may not agree with our game, but it is our game. We had just picked out a rare ‘cool dog’ when it’s owner coincidentally approached us and asked if we could dog-sit his very lovely pooch for a few minutes whilst he popped into a cafe to use the loo. We were very happy to and here is Molly, a lovely therapy dog who visits the elderly and sick for her job. What a good girl!

Anyway, I digress. Having begrudgingly surrendered Molly back to her owner we went to find Greg and Gigi at their hotel and unsuprisingly located them at the bar. Here commenced the agenda for the next two days of incessent chatting, eating and drinking. A couple of drinks at the bar was followed by an unexpected free ‘glass’ (plastic cup) of fizz in the hotel lobby, a congenial freebie offered to guests between 5 and 6pm each day. We pretended we were staying too, obviously, and had two each. Then we slowly strolled towards the downtown area, visiting various establishments along the way. These had been previously identified by Nick as cool places to go and had been thus marked on a map. Our crawl included a brewery, a bar that served us some very satisfactory food and a speakeasy style basement bar that did some mean cocktails. At the end of the evening we made plans to return in the morning for brunch and took an Uber home.

Our bus back to town in the morning was at 9.30am, which felt very, very early given our mildly sore heads when the alarm went off at 8.30am. It was going to be a long, hot day so we packed a bag with swim suits (for our ongoing deception of being hotel guests where Greg & Gigi were staying) and fresh clothes to go out to dinner in. At the hotel we exchanged our bag for our friends and headed out to brunch, catching one of the free downtown city buses to get there. Fed and watered we commenced a slow, sweaty walking tour of the historic district. We took in squares, cemeteries, town houses, old buildings and the river walk. We even did a couple of laps of the free river shuttle just to have a sit down, get some breeze and see the town from the water. Another establishment that had been marked on ‘the map’ was a well known icecream shop. Our afternoon snack was far more ice cream than any of us really needed, eaten on a bench in a square. This wasn’t the actual Forrest Gump ‘life is like a box of chocolates’ bench, or even the same square, but in our minds it was.

We shuffled slowly back to the hotel via a church or two then decamped to the pool area. We had a couple of hours of much needed R&R with cooling dips in the water. There may have been some napping. Our pool time fortuitously overlapped with ‘free fizz for guests in the lobby’ time. Hoorah! The genuine hotel guests were kind enough to let us use their shower facilities and once we were all clean and changed we set off back to town of the free bus. After sunset drinks in a hotel rooftop bar we went for dinner in a riverfront restaurant that did not impress us much. Nick had done a lot of research on where to eat and it had good reviews but unfortunately it managed to overpromise and underdeliver on all fronts. A bit of a shame, but we had fun with the almost ‘Faulty Towers’ type experience.

A bit less booze was imbibed on this second evening so getting up to catch the 9.30am bus back to town again wasn’t so cruel. A second brunch was had in a great diner-style establishment called Little Duck. They served their brunch cocktails with a little yellow rubber duck floating in them. Cute, but not cute enough to get us drinking again at 11am. We’re not animals.

After brunch we spent another few hot hours stolling the sultry streets again. This place is beautiful but must be unbearable in peak summer. Having cruised across town to visit the renowned Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Museum and Gallery we were quite dismayed to find out it was open every day except on a Tuesday. Today. Rats. By now our bodies were in need of cool refreshment and we found a great air conditioned bar to have a last cocktail before it was time to head back to Greg & Gigi’s hotel to say our farewells. They headed back to the airport and we went ‘home’ were we did NOTHING for the rest of the day. The combination of heat, walking, socialising and moderate excess had broken us.

Savannah was gorgeous and aside from one mediocre eating experience, it had not disappointed. We loved sharing it with friends and really appretiate the effort they make in coming to find us on our travels. The next day, much rested, we continued north, crossing the Savannah river and enterered South Carolina.