Savannah, GA

Day 1

Have you ever seen photos of someplace or seen it in a movie, and decided that you just had to go there one day? That was Savannah for me. I had really no idea what I was going to do when I got there, but I wanted to go - if for no other reason than just to see it.

So here I am. Thanks to the generosity of my mom's employer, we're here for a long weekend. The first thing not to do in this city is stay at the Econo-Lodge on Oglethorpe Avenue. We thought we had found a basic bargain hotel in the historic district. It was advertised as newly renovated, and although it is just a basic hotel, we would only be sleeping there . . . right? Well, we rolled into town at 2:30 in the morning after driving from Richmond, checked into our room, and immediately decided we had made a mistake. The carpet was torn, the furniture was broken, and they had used a strong air "freshener" to cover up the odor of urine that permeated the room. At that hour, the only thing to do was get some sleep. After checking for bedbugs (we didn't see any signs of them), we climbed into bed and attempted to sleep.

Fast forward to morning, where we quickly shower and dress and move our stuff OUT! We did ask to see another room, but that one was worse. All the same odors from the first room, plus stale cigarette smoke. Now, directly across Oglethorpe is a very nice Hampton Inn, and with the help of manager Jim and front desk attendant Robbin, we relocated our base of operations. This place I would highly recommend to anyone. Not only do the rooms not smell, but the beds are quite comfortable, and the staff are friendly and helpful. There is a nice dining area, and a sitting room with a TV and fireplace. Breakfast, internet access, and newspaper are included in the price. Oh, and when the weather allows, they have a nice outdoor pool, too.

Now, for those people who said "Why would you go to Savannah?", I say why not? It is a beautiful city, with loads of things to see and do, places to eat, places to photograph or draw, history to learn about; you name it, I think you can find it here. We opted for a trolley tour with Old Savannah Tours, taking advantage of the all-day on and off option. You get to ride around and see the whole historic district and listen to the narrative, then ride again and hop off at the places you want to explore. We found that riding several times was interesting, because each driver kind of took their own route (basically the same, but still different) and included different tid-bits in their chatter.

We hopped off to get lunch at the Pirates' House. They have a nice southern buffet, or you can order off the menu. We chose the buffet - great fried chicken (not the standard buffet oven-fried stuff) with a honey-pecan sauce, pulled pork barbecue, fried fish, mac & cheese, squash casserole (absolutely delicious!), veggies - very good! Make sure you save room for dessert. We didn't know there was any, until the server appeared with four plates of the yummy stuff. Homemade banana pudding and 7-layer bars were the featured treat the day we visited. We were very happy that our hotel room has a fridge; it would have been a terrible shame to have to waste those goodies.

Our next stop was the Colonial Park Cemetery where Union forces camped during the Civil War. The grave markers were inconveniently in the way, so they simply moved them. Many of these are lined up along the wall, the locations of the graves they originally marked long forgotten. From there we wandered over to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. This is one of those places that some people may pass up as not interesting or exciting enough. However, it really is beautiful inside, and worth checking out. One word of caution - don't get down on the floor to take pictures. The pictures are OK, the floor isn't.

At this point, we were all completely exhausted, so back on the trolley we went for the ride back to our hotel. It was decided that pizza delivery would be an excellent choice for dinner. Vinnie Van Go Go's came highly recommended by the hotel staff, the menu looked good, and the prices were reasonable. Delivery took about an hour - not bad for a Friday night - and our pizza and calzone were excellent. Again happy about our in-room fridge, we wrapped up our left-overs to enjoy later, crawled into those big, comfy beds, and crashed!