Savannah Georgia Day 1

This report is from our trip last July to Savannah, Georgia.

Day 1
Last April, I graduated with my Master’s degree and had a big party at our house to celebrate. At this party, I received a wonderful gift basket that most of our family and friends contributed towards. Since the theme of the gift basket was to promote baby-making (since I had been saying for years that we weren’t going to have children until I was finished with school), the main part of the gift was a 2 night stay at a bed & breakfast in Savannah, Georgia. Neither of us had ever been to Savannah, which is about a 4.5 hour drive away (we tend to drive the other way…to Disney!), so we were excited to visit a new place.

Savannah is one of the oldest cities in the U.S., with plenty of historical significance, monuments and stories to tell. Many of these stories are based on the belief that Savannah is one of the most haunted cities in America, which is to be expected of a Southern town with so much history. Since we find that stuff rather interesting, one of the first things we planned was a nighttime ghost tour. We also booked a daytime walking historical tour. Both of these tours were purchased with Groupons.

**TRAVEL TIP**

When you know you will be visiting a city for a trip in the near future, sign up for that city’s Groupon andLiving Social notification emails. You never know what good deals will be offered. It may even help plan your trip by offering events or activities that you didn’t even know about! Groupon Getaways and Living Social Escapes are also great ways to find places to stay for discounted price.

Since I had just started a new job less than a month prior to the trip, I really didn’t want to take any time off from work, so we decided to take our trip during the 3-day Fourth of July weekend.

We left on our adventure Saturday morning and not without some fun along the way. There had been some pretty bad wildfires recently, and one stretch of road that we went through was experiencing some bad smoke coverage.

We arrived at our bed & breakfast just in time to check in. We stayed at the McMillan Inn.

Neither of us had ever stayed in a bed & breakfast and were a little hesitant, to be honest. While we love the idea of a nice breakfast being prepared for us, the idea of sitting around a dining table making conversation with random strangers didn’t thrill us, and neither did not having choices for breakfast items…since we all know one of us is a picky eater.

When we arrived, we had to ring the doorbell and one of the owners answered and let us in. We waited in the living room area while he gathered our keys and other information to check us in. There were yummy chocolate chip cookies and peach tea available to snack on…which were replenished and available during our entire stay. We headed towards the back of the house, past the refrigerator stocked with peach tea and water, and walked outside past the pool and outside lounging area to get to our own private door, since we were staying in the Carriage House Suite.

We basically had our own little apartment! When you walk in, to your immediate right was the living room, complete with a couch and fireplace. And just when you thought Leonardo DiCaprio’s ghostly reflection was in the mirror above the fireplace….nope, that’s a television behind the mirror and you are watching Inception!

They also have a DVD player and some DVDs available…including Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil of course.

There is a fully stocked kitchen, with a bar and fridge. Unfortunately, we barely used this area, except for the sodas and water that come free in the fridge for you! The kitchen would be perfect for a family staying for a longer period of time.

The bathroom had a nice stand-up shower stall and was beautifully decorated with antiques, as were the rest of the rooms. It was a nice mixture of modern amenities with antique decorations.

The bedroom had a queen size bed, dresser, closet, flat panel LCD television and whirlpool tub. (and creepy old portraits - I know they were watching me when I was sleeping lol)

In the back, there is also a small courtyard with a pool, but we did not make use of this during our stay. It looked beautiful though!

After we got our stuff situated, we headed down to the Riverfront, a strip of shops and restaurants next to the river. We were starving at this point, so we went into one of the first seafood places we saw, The Shrimp Factory. I took a leap and tried something new to me….shrimp and grits! It was very tasty, with just the right amount of spiciness. Since this meal, Brett has made shrimp and grits several times at home; quick, easy and delicious. I feel so southern when I eat it!

After lunch, we took a brisk walk down the street to check out some of the shops. We then went on our historical walking tour. We had an “interesting” tour guide who was o̶v̶e̶r̶l̶y̶ excited about Savannah and was ready to go with his backpack water pack! We started out walking with another couple, but fortunately for us, they left midway through because they were so hungry that they wanted to eat at a restaurant we passed that smelled good. So from that point, it was like we had our own private tour!

Savannah has lots of little squares, which are basically just little parks or gathering spots, usually with a large statue in the center. We stopped at several of these to hear their stories and basically just did a small loop around the town.

We even saw the spot where several scenes from my favorite movie were filmed…Forrest Gump! Right here is where the bench was located and they filmed all the scenes where Forrest was waiting for the bus and telling his life story to others that were waiting for the bus.

As you can see, there is no bench. I was very disappointed to find out that the bench was just a movie prop that was brought in and then removed when they finished filming. There were alot of people taking photos because it is a highlight of most of the tours.

After the tour, we had a short amount of time until our ghost tour, so we grabbed a bite to eat at Panera Bread. We were a little disappointed to be eating somewhere that we have in Tallahassee, but it served it’s purpose as someplace quick. We went back to some of the places we had just seen to take more photos.

Really cool trees.

The birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts.

Horse and carriage rides/tours are pretty popular.

It was then time for our ghost tour. We had to meet in one of the town’s squares 15 minutes before the tour started and boy was there alot of people waiting with us! They had so many people for this tour that they split us into two groups. The owner tried his best to keep one group without kids, but someone snuck over to our group anyway (and yes, the kid was a pain in the ass of course). We had at least 30 people in our group, so Brett and I just tried to stay towards the front so we could hear the tour guide. We stopped at various houses, restaurants and hotels and heard ghost stories from each place. We walked by the cemetery, and even though it was closed, he was able to point out some of the interesting tombstones and the stories behind their deaths.

Apparently, tours are so popular in Savannah, that they have “tour police” - that’s my term for them, as I did not catch their real title. While we were all walking, our tour guide was stopped by one of these tour police vehicles and had to provide his tour license. He was ultimately written a ticket for having too many people in his group (I think the limit was 30), but I bet he didn’t mind because of all the money he was making by having such a large group at once!

After the tour, it was rather late, so we headed back to the Inn. When you check in, they give you your own key to the front door so you don’t wake the other guests that are staying the main house. We quietly opened the door, I took a few chocolate chip cookies that were waiting for us on the table, poured us some peach tea and made our way to our personal suite.

 

Click HERE for Day 2!

 

xoxo

Lynn

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