Savannah - a Carriage and a Storm

Last night I came down to turn off the light on the sitting room. Did so, but the lamp was on - I hadn't turned it on!! So was it already on when I came in or something else - managed to spook myself quite a bit. Then told myself not to be ridiculous. The Inn is supposed to be haunted by three ghosts but this guesthouse is not, Patrick assured me. The lamp turned out to be just a bit dodgy-brothers built - no ghosts here. I am glad there other tenants here though.

Anyway, this morning, over to breakfast - standard continental breakfast, nice pastries. There was a couple there I had seen at dinner last night. She came over to say hello. Maureen and Maurice are from the south of England and are doing a historic tour. They did a garden tour a couple of years ago. We swap a couple of tips - I tell them if the Capitol is still closed, you can go in and watch the houses in session, she gives me a great travel app that works offline and is packed with information about all the places in America. Again, nice people.

First port of call today is a carriage ride through town so I walk down to the City Market to book a ride.

The guy booking the tours was hilarious, funny guy who should be on the stage. Girl doing the tour and driving (is that the right word?) the horses is Cheyenne and she's local, don't ya know, mm-hm. I have a bit of trouble understanding her at times but get the gist. The horses are Jed and Gerry.

Savannah was formed in 1773 by a guy called General Oglethorpe who named Georgia after King George II. He became friendly with a local native Indian chief Tomochichi, they pledged goodwill and formed Savannah. So these guys are fairly famous here. It's a grid city with lots of garden squares...

Very pretty. Houses around the squares, paved roads.

This park...

..is where the park bench that Forrest Gump sat on is at the bus stop. The bench is no longer there, you can't sit on it, you can't take pictures of it. What you can do is go to the Visitors Center and pay for a photo of it...yeah, I didn't like the movie that much anyway - but don't dare say that here! 

And the actual park bench wasn't at a bus stop and the street is one way going the other way.

Lovely church - this apparently appears in Gump, at the start.

We went down the rich street - beautiful street with beautiful homes. Apparently if you have a red door, 

It means you've paid off your mortgage. There are a lot of red doors on this street.

Past the cemetery - the whole town was a cemetery, they just built over the top of old graves. That's why it's known as one of the most haunted towns in America. I did contemplate doing a ghosts and graves tour but decided against it. Bit too close here.

Cheyenne mentioned that she only had two weeks of this job to go. She got a new job at a share car. That's what I thought she said. The Florida couple next to me deciphered it to be a new job at the 'sheriff's office'. Okay, that's good. 

Good tour, nice way to see the town. Got most of it, "See tha house ova theyah..." Mm-hm. (The mm-hm is hers, not mine. At the end of most sentences.)

Said goodbye to the horses...

..Then head back down to River Street to browse some of the antique shops. Find a shop with fabulous old books, old collections and first editions. Very expensive. Besides Gone With the Wind, for some reason, The Wizard of Oz and Marilyn Monroe are huge here - all sorts of collectables.

I wander past a place that looks like a likely candidate to sell a drink recommended by the guy booking the carriage ride - Georgia peach cider. So I'm aiming to find it. This shop doesn't sell it, but it's an amazing store selling fudge, pralines and toffee apples.

You can try the praline...

..They have displays on how they make stuff. Here's the toffee apples...

..unlike any toffee apples I've seen!

And I love this one...

You can get bags or little cases and fill them with lollies. Note the back wall with columns of lollies. And the ATM machine so you can buy more.

What a great shop. I got a couple of pieces of the praline - for the train trip tomorrow...

I came back to the Inn coz I wanted to try the famous southern dish, fried green tomatoes. They serve it as a BLT. I got just the LT, which sounds really dull but it was anything but. I heard on the radio the other day about how posting photos of meals on Facebook was the most hated thing people can do and that some people are developing eating disorders coz it makes their own food look dull and boring. So I'm thinking this is not on Facebook and even if it's boring, I don't care. Here's my LT lunch.

They are delicious! Spread a little ketchup on it, there's the obligatory pickle on the left (can't really see it) and potato salad. Yum! I had always thought it would be like hard, unripe tomatoes but it wasn't. The ladies in Charleston had said they'll either be really well done or really horrid - it all depended on the cooking. Thankfully, this chef is great.

Next, up to Forsyth Park - a really lovely park about 20 minutes walk away. There's a large oval up one end, playground for kids, lots of dog walkers, gorgeous long pathway lined with trees with Spanish moss...

Great fountain.

As I was taking this photo, along came Maureen and Maurice, who were exploring too. It was starting to look very grey so we started back in the direction of the Inn. We made it a few blocks when the lightening streaked and thunder cracked explosively. We huddled under a tree for cover. 

Realised this was not the best when the rain started sheeting in to the side. So we ran across the road to an awning, thankfully, because it then became this...

We were ushered inside this random building by - of all people - the waitress who served me lunch! She was here to pay her rent. While we were standing there, another group came running in - as saturated as we were and laughing as much.

After a while it did calm down and we continued on. At least it had cooled the air. Maureen and Maurice headed off to find a cafe while I went in search of a manor one of the Sunrise reporters got married at - for no other reason than I'd seen it on TV and wanted to see it live. Fancy building, very nice. Not open on Mondays.

 

Went back to the Inn to dry off and sit and relax for a while. Then went out on my mission to find this...

Walked down to River Street again, strolled along, looking at the shops. I would have liked a coffee but didn't actually see a coffee shop. Never mind. Found this in one of the stores. The girl at the counter picked that I was Australian after three or four words - unusually. She had been to Australia as a student, did the trip I would (and have) recommended to a tourist - Sydney, Uluru, Alice Springs and Cairns. 

Came back, sat at the little desk, wrote this and drank my cider. It had the potential to be sickly sweet but it wasn't. Was surprisingly good.

Across for dinner - again amazingly good - shrimp and spinach on pastry with Cajun cream sauce with beans, capsicum and squash. Mm-hm...