Day 16: Savannah, GA

We spent the whole day exploring historic Savannah. We pushed hard, and the kids are exhausted tonight, but it was worth it. This is truly a beautiful city.

We started by walking south to Forsyth Park, a 30-acre greenspace featuring the iconic Forsyth Fountain and the coolest, nicest park pavilion and restrooms I've ever seen (Starbucks, anyone?), housed in a circa-1909 "dummy fort," formerly a training ground for local militia.







From there, we walked north past a half-dozen or more peaceful, shaded little public squares. In all, 22 squares dot the historic district, which is laid out in a satisfyingly symmetrical grid. Some of the squares feature bubbling fountains, others have statues or monuments honoring some of Savannah's favorite sons. They're centered on the north-south running streets, so traffic has to flow around them every few blocks; they serve as lovely, lush speed bumps.



In the City Market, we caught a horse-drawn trolley tour, which helped to orient us  and educate us on some of the area's more significant historical landmarks. One point that stuck with us: When James Edward Oglethorpe founded Savannah in 1733, he outlawed lawyers, Catholics and drinking. Keith and I chuckled, thinking of a few people we know who would have been run out of town back in the day for fulfilling that trifecta.

The horses were named Jameson and Guinness. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Telfair Museums, on Telfair Square. The Telfair Academy, housed in a former family mansion, features 19th- and 20th-century American and European art. Across the street, the airy, modern Jepson Center is devoted to contemporary art. One of the most striking works we saw was by Walter MacEwan, a 19th-century American artist. In fact, he had several pieces featured at the Telfair Academy, but this one, "Eh! Eh! Les autres allons jouer!" completely arrested us with its unusual subject matter and dramatic perspective. I mean, don't mess with these these babies -- they look like they're coming to eat us! I've never seen anything like this.



We ate dinner at The Pirates' House, a thoroughly touristy attraction that claims to be housed in the oldest building in the country. This is the kind of place where the kids wear paper pirate hats and the servers say things like, "Do you want anything from the BARRRRGH?" But behind the unabashed kitchiness, there is quite a bit of history that is neat to observe. We had the honor of being seated in the VIP room, the Herb House, which was the original building on the property.





After dinner, we took part in a family-friendly ghost tour. We had to talk Charlie and Clare into participating. The kids -- both softies -- were not at all interested in being spooked. Though the tour involved walking another three miles at 10 o'clock at night, it turned out that this was a very kid-oriented tour; there were even several very young kids in strollers and wagons. Our guide, Skippy Spiral (his admitted stage name) basically retraced the routes we had taken earlier today on foot and on our horse-drawn tour. But his (very tame) ghost stories added another historical perspective. In all, though, I'd say the goose-bump factor was zero.



Except for this: We stood outside the Colonial Park Cemetery listening to Skippy explain that during the yellow fever epidemic of 1876, many sick people were mistaken for dead and accidentally buried alive. So residents attached cords with bells to the ankles of the bodies they buried, and if any not-actually-dead people woke up, the bell above the tomb would ring. As if to punctuate Skippy's story, a biker cycled past our group at that very moment and rang his bell in a friendly "hello." Now that was spooky.