Visiting Savannah

After visiting Charleston, South Carolina, as mentioned in yesterday's blog post, my sister Susan and I drove to Savannah, Georgia, which is one of my favorite towns in America. It had been years since I last visited there, and despite studying a map beforehand, I wound up driving far to the south of the city into cow-infested territory, before realizing my mistake and turning around, finally finding our luxury Motel 6 Resort Hotel on the south side of Savannah. We had dinner on River Street, which runs along the Savannah River, and seen in the photograph on the left. It was Sunday night, and pretty slow along what is considered the area's nightclub and tourist district, but the next day, the tourist busses and walking tours were back in force, and so the city is evidently still a very popular tourist destination.

The most impressive thing about Charleston are the beautiful mansions located in the historic district. Savannah's homes are also very nice, but the most impressive thing about Savannah are its 22 beautiful squares, which were planned out by General James Oglethorpe when he founded the city back in 1733. Driving around each of these squares is a truly wonderful experience. I had a map of a self-guided walking tour that I hoped to take, but since Susan still has trouble walking after a fall back in November, we drove to each square, where I would stop and get out of the car and walk around taking photographs, such as the one on the right.

I took a lot of photos of those squares, and each is beautiful and unique. The first squares were planned out and built when the city was founded, and feature the oldest homes. As the city grew, more of these little parks were added. Originally there were 24 of these squares, but during the 20th century, three were destroyed, no doubt before the preservation movement gained momentum. One of these lost green spaces was finally restored to its original state. In my opinion, still having 22 out of the original 24 is a fine record indeed.

Savannah was famously featured in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt's 1994 non-fiction bestseller. The book covers the trial of a wealthy antiques dealer who was accused of killing a male prostitute, and was on the New York Times Bestsellers List for 216 weeks. A movie was made from the book in 1997, which was filmed in Savannah. John Williams, the antiques dealer, lived in what is called Mercer House, which was where the murder took place. That house, located on one of the squares, is now a museum, and can be seen in the photograph on the right. Now that it is a museum, it means it is not for sale, and I can't make an offer for it. Damn!