Savannah, GA

Total time spent in the car today | 6 hours

Today we made a pretty straight shot from Raleigh to Savannah, only stopping briefly in Santee State Park (South Carolina) for lunch. We chose the park randomly based on when we got hungry, but it turned out to be lovely. There were picnic shelters right on a lake and plenty of room for the dogs to take a stretch break.

We got to Savannah around 2:30 and spent about half an hour just driving around to get ourselves acquainted with the layout. From our first turn down its tree-lined streets, I was hopelessly in love with Savannah. It's got everything you could ever ask for in a picturesque southern town... tree-filled squares every two blocks (complete with a monument to some obscure deep south military hero in the center of each), streets lined with antebellum architecture, and live oaks dripping with Spanish moss around every corner.

Scott and I wanted to get the most "bang for our buck" (and time) tourism-wise because we had to shorten our stay in Savannah to just this one afternoon and evening, so we decided that taking a good old fashioned carriage tour would our best solution. As it turns out, I don't think we could have made a better choice. Our tour guide was wonderfully knowledgeable, the carriage was comfortable, and we had as close to perfect weather as one can get.

One of our favorite moments on the carriage tour was riding down historic Jones Street, which is lined on either side with multi-million dollar townhouses and their associated southern-style gardens and courtyards. Our tour guide told us it was named "The Most Picturesque Street in the Southeast" and it was not hard to see why.

Jones Street

After our tour we headed down to River Street which, as its name suggests, parallels the Savannah River. We ate at Bernie's, a seafood restaurant on River Street, where we gorged ourselves on fried seafood and hush puppies (delicious!). From dinner we headed up to the Market area where there was a live band performing on the street for all to enjoy. While we listened to the music and watched the sun set, we enjoyed a wonderfully decadent waffle cone of gelato and then headed back to the hotel for the night. Tomorrow we will be driving across the top edge of Florida and staying the night on the Gulf Coast. All in all, I give Savannah two very enthusiastic thumbs up!

River Street