Savannah, Georgia

The southern history tour continued as we headed into historic downtown Savannah on Saturday. The city was full of tourists by all modes of transportation; foot, carriage rides, trollies, cars and segways all learning about the oldest city (1733) in Georgia. There is so much to learn or re-learn depending on your recollection of history. The best part is there is something for everyone; art, architecture, history, parks and it's all amazing. The detail with which these buildings were built in those years is something to marvel at.
Once again we chose the Old Town Trolley hop on/hop off to educate ourselves about the area and get a glimpse of the different types of architecture. Once we completed the tour we headed over to the river district which is lined with restaurants and shops. It is located on the Savannah River and we had hoped to see some of the freighters coming and going but Saturday was a slow shipping day as we didn't see any.  Savannah's port is the 4th busiest and fastest growing container terminal in the U.S.. Our other stops included Forsyth Park, Cathedral of St. John the Baptist and the City Market.
We also saw the area where the scene from Forest Gump was filmed when he was sitting on the bench and the cafeteria where Forest would visit Jenny. Of course we had to stop at one of the candy shops to try traditional pralines and watch taffy being made.

Thunderbolt Marina offers a courtesy car so we took advantage and headed to the grocery store Sunday. The marina also delivers Krispy Kreme donuts to your boat each morning, yum. Mark completed some maintenance items and I relaxed working on some art projects.

With so many weather forecasts being totally wrong we took a chance on Monday that the forecast for wind and rain was going to be accurate and arrive later in the day. Happily they got it right! We left Thunderbolt at 8:30 a.m. so that our travels today would be entirely on a rising tide, and headed to Beaufort, S.C. before rain, thunderstorms and wind approached from the west. Our usual "laid-back" looper style took a day off as we turned into "go-fast" loopers, traveling the 49 miles along the ICW during the weather window to Lady's Island Marina. We made it in plenty of time and as predicted, the skies opened up between 5-6 p.m. Thankfully there was no hail or tornadoes in our area!

Mercer-Williams House

 

Savannah is known for it's wrought iron work

 

 

Oldest masonry building in Georgia, now a restaurant.

Much of Savannah was constructed using ballast stone,

stone that was placed in the empty sailing vessels arriving

from other parts of the world to keep them from capsizing.

the stone was then unloaded and the ships filled with bales

of cotton for the return trip.

 

Chippewa Square - the site of Forest Gump's

famous bus bench. The bench is now in a museum.

 

Forsyth Park Fountain added to the park in 1858

 

Cathedral of St. John the Baptist

Completed in 1896, nearly destroyed by fire in 1898

and rebuilt in 1899

 

 

The stained glass windows were installed in 1900.

The murals were painted in a New York studio and

installed in 1912.

 

The stations of the cross are wood carvings

from Munich, Germany.

 

The pipe organ was installed in 1987, built similar

to a 16th century German organ.

 

Listening to live music in the City Market area.

 

Shrimp boats at low tide on a fixed dock, they

have to climb down to get onto them.

 

Rain and t-storms at Lady's Island Marina