3.20.2009

Spring Break in Savannah

We're back now from our wonderful trip to Savannah, Georgia during Spring Break. We'd never been to Savannah before, and left feeling charmed by the city and looking forward to the next time we'll be able to visit. Here's a brief overview of our trip...

We left early Sunday morning, and took the more scenic drive through the mountains to Atlanta, and after about 8 hours, arrived at our hotel in Savannah. We settled in a bit and headed to Uncle Bubba's Oyster House on the river for a seafood dinner, which was very yummy. Collin got the oyster dinner and I got the scallop dinner (the kids ended up with the stand-by chicken fingers and grilled cheese), which were both very good. We left with full tummies and headed back to hotel to rest up for the next day.

Monday morning we headed to historic downtown and waited in line at The Lady & Sons (Paula Deen's restaurant, for those foodies out there) to get a lunch reservation time for that day. Then we bought our tickets for an "Old Savannah Trolley Tour" with on and off privileges that allowed us to get off at any of the 14 stops to explore on our own and get back on a later trolley. The tour guides were quite amusing, had a lot of history and trivia to offer about Savannah, and I think we all enjoyed taking in the sights and sounds of the city. We went back to eat at The Lady & Sons for a late lunch and tried lots of good Southern cooking from the buffet, including fried green tomatoes, crab stew, cornbread, BBQ pork sandwich, fried chicken, mac-n-cheese, collard greens, garlic cheddar biscuits (which were fabulous) and topped it all off with peach cobbler for dessert! We were stuffed!! After heading back to the hotel to let our puppy outside, we decided to go back into town and look around the City Market section a bit. About 6 blocks away from the car, we got caught in a downpour and decided perhaps we should wait until tomorrow to continue our tour. We went back to the hotel and dried off, and had a very light dinner at Bennigan's before calling it a night.

Tuesday morning, St. Patrick's Day, we woke up early and went downtown to get a parking spot for the parade later that morning. We then were able to walk through the shops at City Market and found a spot on Bull Street to watch the parade. We saw city officials, marching bands, Ireland themed floats, and lots of people in kilts playing bagpipes. Moira thoroughly enjoyed all the hoopla of the parade, but Ian thought it was all a bit too loud. I found it amusing that "the loaf" about had a fit inside the first time one of the marching bands walked by with their loud drums and horns blaring! One of the parade officials even stopped when he saw Moira and came over to give her some green beads, saying that he "couldn't pass this cutie up." :) We didn't realize that Savannah hosts the 2nd largest St. Patrick's Day celebration (after Chicago) in the world - and that 500,000 people were expected to descend on downtown that day. We saw locals and visitors alike, but most interesting were all the visitors from Ireland herself! After getting our fill of the parade, we went to Scottish pub called Molly McPherson's, of all places, as we had determined this would be the best place to get a good Irish lunch and was the most family-friendly. We got Corned Beef & Cabbage and Bangers & Mash, and Collin had the obligatory Guinness, which were all very good. We walked down to Leopold's Ice Cream afterward, but they were closed, so we headed back to the hotel to see Cailin for a bit. We then decided to make the short drive down to Tybee Island, with a quick detour to try to see Paula Deen's house, to walk the beach. The kids were itching to get in the water and swim, but it was just too cold, so they settled for splashing around in the shallow water. It was all very picturesque, and it was nice to be able to see the Atlantic again, and show it to the kids for the first time. We went back into Savannah to eat at the Mellow Mushroom for dinner, and after eating way too much pizza, we came back to the hotel and caught American Idol before calling it a night.

We left Savannah early Wednesday morning, and made it back home earlier than expected at 4pm. I got lots of knitting done in the car (pretty much started and finished a baby blanket in the car on this trip for an upcoming baby shower this weekend) and we had lots of daylight once we got home to play in the warm weather, unpack and start laundry and relax. I think all of our legs are a bit sore from all the walking we did this week, and I've decided not to make fun of the belly belts you see in the stores anymore, for supporting a preggo woman's belly!! ;-) All in all it was a wonderful trip, full of new adventures, good food, beautiful scenery and lots of quality time spent together as a family.


Click on the picture above to see the picasa album of all our Savannah trip pictures. I recommend viewing the pictures as a slideshow to get the full effect and to read all the captions.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is so cool! We're going to Atlanta for our Spring Break in a week. :)

Sounds like you guys had lots of fun!

Suzann said...

love shot 147 - you should print & frame

DW Hobbs said...

How fun!!! It sounds like y'all had a wonderful time, I'm so glad!!! Savannah really is so beautiful, I'm so glad you were able to get away and enjoy one of my home state's most charming cities. Can't wait for you to get to enjoy Charleston someday too! ;-) Let's promise that trip we'll be together though, I absolutely must be able to share it with you in person!

Much love to you, thanks so much for sharing!

DW Hobbs said...

P.S. I left lots of comments in your Picasa album. ;-)