FIELD TRIP: Savannah, Georgia

 Destination Savannah, Georgia!

Whether it's Washington D.C., Annapolis, Tampa, or Savannah, we're lucky to see it up close and personal. For the kids, it's their history lessons come to life and getting to enter & touch the foundation on which our country was built.

Parking in this little town proved to be a pain, and I knew immediately that I'd be researching alternative transportation around town. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because the trolley was awesome.

We started our trip on the River Walk, which is beautiful. When you've seen one historic building, it feels like you've seen them all until you look up close and get a peek at what specifically took place there. Aside from reading the historical signs, there was plenty of shopping and eating to do in this area.

For a little while, though, we just sat and watched the ships and boats pass under the bridge. Judging the height of each boat was hard from where we were, making for a fun guessing game of "Will they make it?"

What might not seem so incredible is Spanky's, a local restaurant. However, if their claim to fame is true, they are the home of the original chicken finger. I'll take their word for it! I'm not sure how everyone else felt about them, but I ate 'em up, and honestly, they might just be the best chicken fingers I've ever tasted. Juicy, tender, and saucy!

We also tried Savannah's Candy Kitchen for a sweet treat & it did not disappoint. The fudge was great! And for good pizza, check out Vinnie Van Go Go's.

Not wanting to mess with finding parking, we purchased an Old Town Trolley hop-on/off pass to make the sights more accessible. We went on this trip not knowing much, but thanks to our trolley drivers, I left with a great appreciation of the town. They shared so many cool local fun facts. It made it worth every penny because otherwise, I would've been clueless about a lot of what we were looking at. 

One of the stops took us to a square full of shops, food, & The American Prohibition Museum. It was an impressive little spot. All the propaganda promoting why booze was wrong or why it was best was on display. I especially laughed at the sign, "We Children Want Sugar! Don't Waste it on Beer!" The museum has a speakeasy bar where you can order real drinks and listen to music but we just passed through. It was a cozy little space that would've been fun if we had more time.

There is so much to learn as you walk through the museum. One portion is dedicated to how Walgreens Pharmacy played a part in prohibition. "Sacramental and medicinal liquor was still legal, and so Walgreens sold booze, hooch, and whiskey to all their best patients. Walgreens is more than likely worth billions due to this little loophole, but they like to say their claim to fame is the invention of the Malt Milkshake."

Also, it was news to me that Nascar was built during Prohibition. In order to outrun the police and deliver moonshine to the next doorstep, they had to have fast cars and good drivers.

These moonshine runners "began to race their whiskey cars at local fairgrounds and racetracks, where they discovered that people—sometimes tens of thousands of them—were willing to pay to watch them showcase their driving skills.

When we finished our time on the trolley, we were dropped off at our original starting point near The Georgia State Railroad Station. Since the workers were gone for the day, we did a self-guided tour, which was fine because we could still peek inside the trains and see the sights.

During our trolley tour, we learned that Chippewa Square is where Forrest Gump was filmed, so we made a pit stop there. The actual bench where the Gump character sat is in The Savannah History Museum at the visitor center on MLK Blvd.

A visit to the African Baptist Church is to see where "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. first preached his "I Have A Dream" sermon, an address he repeated during the famous march on Washington, D.C. in 1963."

Colonial Park Cemetery is where a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Button Gwinnett, rests in peace. Also, more than 700 victims of the 1820 Yellow Fever epidemic are buried here. A fun fact I only learned after we walked through, "The Colonial Park Cemetery is also home to one of Savannah's most famous ghosts, that of "Rene Asche Rondolier (or Renee Rondolia Asch), a disfigured orphan who was said to have called Colonial Park his home in the early 1800s. Accused of murdering two girls whose bodies were found in the cemetery, Rene was dragged to the nearby swamps and, lynched and left for dead. More dead bodies turned up in the cemetery in the days that followed. The townspeople were convinced it was Rene's ghost; some still call the cemetery Rene's playground.

The town, straight out of an old movie, is a sight to behold. Its absolute cleanliness adds to its charm, making it a perfect walking town with so much to see off the beaten path.

Six Pence Pub is where Something to Talk About was filmed with Julia Roberts. 

We made a stop at Leopold's Ice Cream Parlor. It was founded in 1919 and still serves Old-Fashioned hand-crafted fountain sodas. We lucked out on our timing because we had maybe a 10-minute wait, but by the time we got to the front counter, the wait was probably an hour long. We were told in the summer the wait can be as long as 3 hours. Lucky for us because all of it was good stuff!

The Garden of Fragrance in Forsyth Park was one of my favorite sights. It was created for those with limited sight. Since they can't see the flowers, they wanted them to enjoy the park and smell the flowers. There are lemon trees and varieties of roses, lilies, irises, and violets, all labeled in both English and Braille. It is one of the biggest highlights of the entire park. It is really thoughtful and sweet.

As always, there is so much to see, do, and eat on a trip, but these highlights sum up our favorite parts! To get more information about the spots I've mentioned, click the links provided throughout the blog above.