For YEARS we have been wanting to go to Savannah Georgia. We’ve watched television shows and seen pictures that make it look so beautiful. I’ve seen Facebook memories recently where I’ve asked for suggestions on where to stay for several years. So we finally decided this is it, this is the year that we were going!!! So we booked our hotel and planned our trip. I hate to say that we were disappointed when so many people say that they love the city. But we made the most of our time together.
We drove to Savannah on a Thursday. Traffic wasn’t bad going thru Atlanta and down I-75 to Macon. Then we get on I-16 to Savannah and it is 100+ miles of nothingness!!! We had planned to get lunch after we got on 16. It was quite awhile before we found an exit with anything at the interstate exit. We had lunch in Dublin, GA. We used the Yelp app and opted to go with a local place. We chose Hometown Grill and had the lunch buffet. The food was good but average. We were really hoping for a great hole in the wall place.
We have arrived!!
We finally arrived in Savannah to find that there was a graduation or something going on at the civic center. So we had to work our way around all the people and traffic since the interstate ends right in Savannah at the civic center.
We stayed a The Desoto Savannah hotel. It was very conveniently located in the historic district. It was ten minute walk in any direction to wherever we were headed.
So we got checked in and decided to hit the ground running. We headed toward River Street after checking with the concierge at the hotel to get our bearings with which way everything was. It was very disappointing to smell urine as we went thru the squares and got to the river. Also was not prepared for the number of homeless people that are in the squares and around the city. We only saw a couple begging for money, but they didn’t bother us. There were some making flowers on River Street to sell. We also saw some guys in robes around the city trying to pass out bracelets. I assume they were actually trying to sell them since we didn’t take or ask.
We did see some activity on the river while we were on River Street
For dinner we went to the art district and had dinner at the Little Duck Diner. I had chicken tacos and Jeff had french toast and eggs.
Friday – Tybee Island
Friday we drove over to Tybee Island to visit the lighthouse and to put our toes in the ocean. We were surprised that 1. you could not see the lighthouse from the main road and 2. there were not any signs pointing the way to the lighthouse. We used our map app and it took us thru a campground, but we found the lighthouse. As we entered the lighthouse there was a lady that told us it was 178 steps to the top and she gave us a card that showed what was in each direction. The only thing was that when you got to the top there wasn’t anything showing which way was north, south, east or west, so I wasn’t sure what I was actually seeing when I went out on the walk at the top of the lighthouse. We toured each of the homes in the lighthouse park and then we walked over to the beach. The sand on the east coast is so much different than the sand on the Gulf of Mexico. The sand was HOT, we had taken our shoes off at the boardwalk and ended up having to put them back on since it was burning the bottom of our feet. When we got to the water it was made up of crushed shells. This was not our first trip to the Atlantic ocean so we already knew the sand was different.
While on the island we had lunch at The Deck. I had fish tacos and Jeff had the deck burger. While having lunch there was an umbrella on the patio that the wind almost took. Jeff saw it happening but I had my back to it. They got it properly secured after that. There was a floor fan on the patio that kept getting up next to the window where we were seating. You could hear it vibrating the window.
After riding around the island, visiting a couple souvenir shops and having lunch we headed back to Savannah.
When we got back and were looking at things we still wanted to do we decided to check out the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist before it closed at 5:00. This cathedral takes up the entire city block along with the catholic school. The cathedral is BEAUTIFUL!!!!
Next stop Leopold’s ice cream. We had to stand in line out onto the sidewalk, but thankfully it moved fast. There was also an employee that before he left for the day he brought us cups and cold water.
I had peanut butter with chocolate chips and Jeff has caramel swirl. He said that mine was better as usual.
For dinner we decided on pizza. So we again turned to the Yelp app and after reading reviews we decided on Screamin’ Mimi’s. Couldn’t help but think of my sister, her grand babies call her Mimi. It was a 10 minute walk from the hotel and was on the other side of the cemetery. When we got there we found that it was a small store in a strip mall and it was so hot inside from the ovens in such a small space. We opted to sit inside since there were fans blowing. Outside was just as hot but without the fans. We ate the pizza but I think we could have probably gotten some better somewhere else. It was like they have a basic cheese pizza and then add whatever toppings you request to the top and heat it up. It was dinner though.
Saturday trolley tour
On Saturday when we opened our curtains we saw that there was some sort of 5k or marathon going on. We wondered if it would affect our trolley tour. We decided that the company would know how to get around any closed streets. So we walked the 10 minutes to the Old Savannah Trolley tour office and got on the first trolley out of the day. The drivers give the history of the city as you ride thru the city. Since we did the hop-on hop-off tour we were able to get on and off the trolley until 5:00 when the last tour was. So we road the trolley to stop 4 which is Forsyth Park and chose that as our first hop-off. The race had roads blocked off around the park, but the driver was able to get us as close as she could and point out where the drop off/pick up spot was.
There was also a farmers market going on in the park so the park was packed with lots of people. But we were able to get pictures of the fountain and then we checked out the farmer’s market.
After exploring Forsyth Park we hopped back on the next trolley and continued our tour of the city. We did a couple hop off and back on. The it was time for lunch, one of the trolley drivers sold us on The Lady and Son’s when we drove by and he said that we could probably see all the butter on the buffet. This was the best meal that we had the entire time. We had the buffet and it was really good.
We enjoyed our day of the trolley tour and being able to hop on and off to see what we hadn’t yet seen. We road the trolley to the stop nearest our hotel and we rested for awhile. Late afternoon we started walking back to Forsyth Park. On the way we met another Jones family on Jones Street. One of the kids tried to get us to have our picture made with them but we didn’t.
Time to head home
Sunday morning we decided to have breakfast before we left for home. We again turned to Yelp and we decided on Mirabelle Cafe across the street from the cathedral. They had the best waffles that we’ve ever eaten. They are belgium liege waffles. I got mine with nutella and strawberries, Jeff went with plain and they came with just powdered sugar. We wish we had found this place before our last meal for this trip.
We made the most of our time in Savannah and we checked it off our bucket list and we think we visited about 18 of the 22 squares. It wasn’t what we expected but we did enjoy learning about all the history associated with the city. We also loved going on another new adventure together.