Georgia On My Mind
We had booked a “Savannah Ramble” walking tour this morning and didn’t have to meet until 10:30, so it was a relatively cruisy morning, enjoying the pancakes at the hotel buffet. There was a lovely southern lady there, on vacation from Mississippi, giving me a rundown on what everything was. As nice as the sausage with white gravy looked (I once mistook it for porridge!) and the grits looked appetising, I decided to stick with the pancakes today. So did the kids, who made the most of the all-you-can eat option!
It was a short walk around the corner to Johnson Square to meet our very knowledgeable guide for the morning, Dirk. There wasn’t anything Dirk didn’t know about Savannah and he was a veritable fountain of information. He told us of the brave General James Oglethorpe, who arrived on the shores of the Savannah River, aboard the good ship “Anne” in 1733 with 120 Englishmen and women to carve for themselves a new city out of dense forest. The plan was to offer a fresh start to some of England’s working poor and he named this city, the 13th colony, “Georgia”, after King George II.
Oglethorpe set about designing a city based around squares – landscaped gardens with beautiful live oak trees – and had amazing town planning insight. The old James Oglethorpe had a few stringent rules for his new colony, including the banning of Catholics, lawyers and slaves. Another of his rules was to ban hard spirits. Ale and wine were allowed though, and it was common to see people wandering around the streets at all times during the day, taking a swig on a cool alcoholic libation. This is still the case, with loads of locals and tourists walking around town with a plastic cup full of wine or beer. After Oglethorpe moved on, his rules were all flouted and Dirk told us of an elderly lady he knew, recalling having to hold the crystal pitcher while her ‘mammy’ pumped gin from one of the dedicated petrol pumps at the local gas station!
Unfortunately slavery was also eventually introduced, despite the General’s wishes, but Savannah was different in the fact that the slaves lived right behind the family homes. The Catholics also came to Savannah, from Ireland, in droves once James had departed and they now have a whopping big French gothic-looking cathedral right in the centre of town. There’s also a huge cemetery in the centre of town and when they moved the fenceline in the early 20th Century, it meant that many of the graves are now right under the footpath! That was a bit freaky.
The walking tour went for a couple of hours and took us through oak tree-lined streets full of gorgeous little (and some not so little) Georgian houses with their iron ‘down spout boots’ and arched chimneys. The windows on the lower floors of the houses all have bars on them, originally installed to stop the roaming livestock from poking their heads through the window and polishing off something from the kitchen bench. Imagine that! You’ve just put the finishing touches on your banana cream pie and Mr Ed pops his head through your kitchen porthole and takes a bite! There was a bit of an information overload on the tour, which we found really interesting but, in hindsight, was probably a bit uninteresting for Maisy. It was HOT walking around too. Maisy and Molly were quite keen to go back to the hotel for a swim and a cool down so we meandered back to the hotel, through the many leafy squares, which sort of do all look the same, making getting lost easier than ever before! Over the years, the squares have all acquired statues and monuments in their centres and the first one we saw was of a man named Nathaniel Green. Every square we walked through after that (there are 24!) I was sure that the statue was Nathaniel and that we were getting closer to the hotel.
“Oh great, there’s Nathaniel! We’re going the right way.” Of course, I was never right and I’m just so grateful that not all of the kids have inherited my woeful sense of direction!
Maisy made some more friends at the pool, Mary and Jenna from Canada, who took an instant shine to Molly and then proceeded to jump all over her and try to drown her! We decided to make our way to a restaurant Dirk had recommended, The Crystal Beer Parlour, for lunch. It was very cool, with its high-backed booths, old posters, photos and newspaper clippings from Savannah dotting the walls and an extensive southern menu with tempting offerings like Bison Burgers, Lil’ Dawgies, Fried Green Tomatoes, Boiled Shrimp, Ground Chuck (sounds delicious?) and Liver and Gizzards! Contrary to how it sounds, the food was actually scrumptious and I tried some “gumbo” – a thick broth with chicken, turkey, sausage and rice – and it was beautiful. American bacon is hard to beat too. Just how do they get it so thin and crunchy? Toby was loving his bacon-laden burger. Maisy had the lil’ dawgies, Molly a delicious roasted veggie wrap with homemade potato chips and everyone tried and approved of, the sweet potato fries.
After lunch we did some more walking and came across a couple of characters sitting on a park bench in one of the squares. The larger than life James Pringle, as he introduced himself to us, was making long stemmed roses out of palm fronds. His eyes were surrounded by two huge green flowers on his plastic glasses and he had the BEST accent! He reminded us of a character from Fat Albert. Ross was chatting to him about Australia (which, incidentally was where his son lived) and he declared in a loud voice to his friend, “I LOVE THE WAY HE SPEAKS! I LIKE HIS TONE!” He was hilarious! Somehow we got to talking about all the poisonous snakes in Australia and James’ mate was telling us about the anacondas down in Florida. He was incredulous that some, “weak-bellied people” could get themselves in a flap and call the ranger when they had a snake in the backyard. He said “If I ever found a snake in my backyard…(“he raised his hand as if firing a gun) and said “poooof!” I told him it wasn’t that common for Australians, especially in the city, to have guns. He looked shocked and, scratching his head, said “gee, that’s some hard living, in some place without a gun!”
James made some of his cute palm flowers for Molly, Maisy and I and then we headed back to the hotel for some down time, Sam and Toby catching up on some World Cup viewing. Tonight we wandered around down on River Street again, browsing in the shops and getting something to eat. Rossco spotted the Five and Dime store and was busy looking for an old six string that he could play ’till his fingers bled but they were clean out. The sunset over the river was glorious and there was a fierce lightning storm over the other side of the river, providing entertainment for everyone along the shoreline. We watched the riverboat cruise paddle its way downstream and enjoyed the band rocking out on stage down on the waterfront. Ross even bought their CD and they were quite chuffed about their music heading down under! On recommendation from the Madders, we made a visit to the praline shop, Savannah Candy Kitchen and it was unbelievable! You could watch the candy being made and there was a mind-boggling array of lollies in barrels, rows of chocolate strawberries, toffee apples, caramel covered marshmallow and hundreds of other mouth-watering treats. It was well worth the visit!
