The Fletcher Grand Tour of Georgia - Stage 5: Savannah

One of the squares in Savannah

If we were doing the Wesley tour correctly, we should have gone to Savannah first, as Wesley himself had done in 1736; however, as it made geographic sense to visit St Simon's first we proceeded to visit Savannah afterwards.  Every road trip needs a bit of an adventure including taking the wrong road, and ours came in Savannah.  We all should have been worried when I said "We don't need the GPS because it's only down this road."  However... after about 20 minutes on this road, when we had passed all the exits that said 'Downtown' and we still didn't seem to be any closer to anything which looked like a town centre, we started getting a bit nervous.  Then, as the final shops were disappearing from the sides of the road we saw the biggest American flag flying at the side of the road - and we all remembered seeing that as we drove into Savannah on the way to the hotel earlier in the day.  At that point, we decided to plug in the GPS which told us to turn around (I'm sure there's a sermon illustration in there somewhere!)!!  We then had to drive the 20 minutes back just to get to where we started, before heading another 20 minutes down the same road in the other direction past the hotel to get to the downtown area.  What is more, the restaurant we had planned to eat at that evening was on the same road, but in the original direction in which we had gone - so it made for a late dinner!

A Savannah residence

Slightly blurred photo of Oglethorpe

We had two full days in Savannah as we were staying for three nights.  We had heard that parking was difficult and expensive, but we discovered that there was a bus which went from outside our hotel.  So we decided we would give that a go, and it proved an easy and stress free mode of transport (until Dad tried getting a senior citizen rate!).  Savannah was the first city in Georgia and planned by General Oglethorpe.  His original intention for the colony of Georgia was that it would be a place for people who were close to going to debtors prison in Britain to get a fresh start.  The city centre was set out in a very European style with lots of little squares to walk around.  The other great way for seeing the downtown area is by horse and carriage, so we took a lovely tour around the streets and squares of Savannah while a very knowledgeable guide told us all about the city, while driving the carriage at the same time!  There are now preservation orders on many of the buildings as, during the 1950's and '60's they were being knocked down and replaced with new ones.  I did discover on this horse and carriage tour that it was very difficult to take a good photo, even though the horses weren't going very quickly!

 

Christ Church

After the carriage tour we went for a bit of a walk to see the squares we didn't see on our trip round, in particular, Reynolds Square where there was the statue of Wesley, commemorating his ministry here.  Along from Reynolds Square is Johnson Square which houses Christ Church, supposedly the Mother Church of Georgia, and the site where Wesley was priest.  From there we were able to walk back to the bus stop to get back to our hotel.

 

The Waving Girl

We had great plans for all we wished to see on the second day.  We started with a walk along the river front.  The Savannah River is obviously still a very active shipping route as there were great cargo ships travelling along there.  The river front certainly was the main touristy area with many gift shops and candy shops.  Just as we planned to head back into town to see the many things we had not had chance to see, the rain started.  Thankfully it was around lunchtime so we were able to see out the shower in a river front restaurant.  As the rain had stopped we continued a bit further on the river front to the 'Waving Girl statue'.  This depicts Florence Martus who waved to every ship which came along the river from 1887 to 1931.  Looking a
t the colour of the skies, we decided we wouldn't risk staying in town any longer, and so headed back to the bus stop - arriving at the shelter just as the rain started again!

 

Tybee Lighthouse

Fortunately, the weather brightened up later in the afternoon so we were able to drive over to Tybee Island which is one of the little islands.  We didn't really stop anywhere, apart from at the lighthouse which is located at the site of Fort Screven.  On Thursday morning we packed up to head off.  Thankfully, unlike Wesley, we did not have to stow away on a boat as there wasn't an arrest warrant out for us!  Instead, we drove inland to Macon.