March 3rd was our 5 year anniversary! We decided awhile back to go on a trip just the 2 of us and we picked Savannah. No particular reason other than we have both always wanted to go there :)
We were gone for 5 days and 4 nights! Ryan stayed at my parents and did very well...so did we! We missed him like CRAZY of course but we made it through on pictures and videos that mom and dad sent us :)
We flew to Charleston, SC and got a rent car to drive to Savannah. Michael surprised me by having reserved us a red Mustang convertible!! It was a BLAST!! It really made our trip extra fun :)
I guess I didn't take a picture of Michael with the car :(
We drove around Charleston for little while, saw some beautiful homes and trees, drove the wrong way down a one way street. You know.
Like most pictures of places that you think are amazingly beautiful, these pictures do not do the beauty justice!
We ate lunch at a famous place that I can't remember the name of. Behind this restaurant is a very swanky, cool looking hotel that a lot of famous people stay at. Apparently, most of those people eat at this restaurant. Their walls are covered with signed pictures of all famous people. At each table are name plates with the names of the "stars" who sat there. This was at my seat:
I couldn't care about them in the least :) but also at our table was a tag with Michael Bolton's name on it. Kind of a cool thing to do!
This was my meal. It was a patty of grits with a crab cake on top and alfredo sauce over the top! It was delicious except since we got a free appetizer of yummy, rich crab dip, I couldn't do much with this rich crab cake and alfredo sauce. Too rich for my blood!
In Savannah, we stayed at a bed and breakfast, Hamilton-Turner Inn. It was amazing! It really couldn't have been better!
It was gorgeous, immaculate and perfect :) and the people who own it and run it are really great! This was our room:
I LOVE brick walls on the inside so I loved this room! It was really cozy and the bathroom was really cute with a claw bath tub. Here are some different pictures of the B&B...
hall leading to our room:
the parlor where they had tea, lemonade and sweets in the afternoon, wine, cheese, crackers, etc in the early evening, port wine at 8...
the view of Lafayette Square out of the front window...
right inside the front door of the B&B...
This was the room we ate breakfast. It was so beautiful and the front windows looked out at the square also...
We got to Savannah on Friday evening and enjoyed dinner at the little English pub around a few blocks away from the hotel. One thing I LOVED about Savannah is that it is a walking city. We could walk almost everywhere we wanted to go! (and it was SAFE!)
Breakfast at Hamilton-Turner was really special. When you sat down, the owner of the inn was there to get your coffee and juice. They had a cold table with muffins, fruit and yogurt. Then they served you the hot plate. One day it was stuffed french toast, one day a homemade croissant with bacon, egg and cheese, one day eggs benedict and one day was biscuits and gravy. Yummy.
On Saturday, we did the Old Savannah Trolley Tour. They gave us a overview of the city and we got to see almost all of the squares. Part of Forrest Gump was filmed in Savannah. The scenes where Forrest was sitting on the bench talking to different people was filmed in one of the squares. Our trolley took us to that square and look who got on the trolley:
It was a funny, cute addition to the ride :)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was also filmed in Savannah. We had not seen it so we watched it while we were there. (The B&B had dvds that you could check out and watch.) Didn't care for it. I actually fell asleep maybe half way through. It was dark and kindof depressing. Anyway, that is a claim to fame for Savannah. This is a picture of the main house in the movie:
Of course, Paula Deen is from Savannah so we had to go see her restaurant!
There was a long line and people had told us that the restaurant is really not that great so we didn't take the time to eat there. I DID really enjoy looking around and buying a couple things at her store though :)
After our tour it started raining and rained the rest of the day and into the night. We shopped a little and got pretty wet so we went back to the visitors center where we started our tour from. We were ushered into their huge theater because we were under a tornado warning and had to stay in the room. I was VERY uncomfortable. It was a HUGE old building with HIGH ceilings. Not the place I would like to be in a tornado. Thankfully, we only had to stay in there for about 5 minutes.
Saturday was our actual anniversary, so we had a nice dinner planned. This was at the B&B before dinner.
We ate at Vic's on the River. It was really nice and delicious. We had a great day!
On Sunday, we drove out to Fort Pulaski and Tybee Island. When we left the B&B, there were a ton of cars parked along the street...
and I remembered that right on that corner is a beautiful, Celtic designed church...
It was amazing. I loved hearing the church bells chime every hour.
I didn't know anything about Fort Pulaski but it was really incredible. To think that people designed it and built it during the Civil War without the heavy equipment that we have now is really amazing.
It has a mote around it...
a drawbridge...
this is when you walk into the center of the fort...
They had this guy dressed up like a soldier who did a demonstration with his gun...how they used to load their own gun powder and everything. He got off 3 shots in less than a minute. He told Micheal he could hold the gun for a picture but when Michael reached for the gun, the guy never let go. HA! So this is Michael and the "soldier" holding the gun :)
This is up top looking over the side of the fort. You can see how they had a good view looking for enemy soldiers.
So we climbed the steps and saw the cannons and took some pics...
when I suddenly realized there was no railing and a 35 foot drop off the side...
Totally freaked me out. And the wind was VERY gusty that day so every once in awhile it would knock you off balance a little. What really freaked me out is that I didn't think about that fact for probably 10 minutes while we were up there. I am assuming if Ryan had been with us I would have realized sooner but it still made me nervous that I didn't.
After that, we went out to Tybee Island and took a picture of the famous lighthouse there...
We ate lunch at the Crab Shack. It was delicious! I love crabs! (We shared this plate :)
They have a bunch of what we thought were fake alligator there. They were all perfectly still...
until I saw one of their throats move. CREEPY! It was pretty cold that day and I think they were in there hibernation mode and were all as still as statues.
On Monday, we decided to walk all around the city as see to much as we could on foot! I loved just walking down the street and seeing the different homes and way their city is designed. They have done such a good job keeping everything looking so good even though it is an old city. While we were on our tour, the driver told us to look at a house of this side of the street and then look at a house on the other side of the street. Could we tell a difference? One was build in the late 1800's and one was build in the late 1900's. They looked the same!
Walking along the sidewalk, we would pass these gates the would lead back into people's garden or courtyard...
I loved this ivy growing on the wall...
There were so many pretty churches and homes...
One park/square that I was really looking forward to seeing was Forsyte Park. It is amazingly beautiful. It reminds me of a smaller Central Park. On Saturday when we passed by, there were people playing frisbee, playing with their dogs, a zumba class and just tons of people hanging out in the green area and under the trees. Lovely.
The trees are amazing and so is the fountain...
I love all the moss in the trees...
I really wanted to eat at this place I kept hearing about called Mrs. Wilkes...supposed to be the best southern food in Savannah! So we waited in line...
and sat down at probably our favorite meal of the trip. You eat family style with people you don't know and pass around the food like you would at your table at home...
From the looks of my plate, I remember I ate fried chicken, bbq pork, rice, squash, baked beans, creamed corn, green beans, mac and cheese, biscuits, mashed potatoes, lima beans and black eyed peas. I even passed a few things by me without eating it! For example: beef stew, okra and tomatoes, greens, sweet potato souffle, marinated cucumbers.
Cute story...when we sat down at the table, we all kinda looked around at each other like "do we just dig in or what?" One of the servers said "y'all go ahead, it's already been blessed" :)
After I ate my entire plate, besides some of the huge chicken breast, they brought out dessert...black berry cobbler or banana pudding. I don't know how I walked out of there!
Oh, then you cleaned your own spot at the table and brought your plate and glass to the kitchen :)
After that, we went back down to the water because we wanted to go to this roof top bar and take a picture...
That's the bridge that leads back into South Carolina, which is the land on the right side of the picture.
We were kinda worn out at that point, so we decided to head back to our hotel and get some lemonade and sit out in the square in the front of our B&B. I was SO nice and peaceful.
I actually read an entire Nicholas Sparks book while we were gone...guilty pleasure!
That night we went to eat the The Pink House. It's a famous restaurant that everyone recommended. We literally were tired of eating at this point. We ate quickly and weren't super blown away by it. Also, at this point, we were READY to get home to see Ryan. Not sure if we could have made it another night!!!
I'll write a little of what Ryan was up to while we were gone in my next post...
I'll write a little of what Ryan was up to while we were gone in my next post...
