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Showing posts from April, 2015

River Street, the Owens-Thomas House, City Market

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Last day in Savannah, last day of holidays... It's coming to an end, peeps! Allegedly we were going to suffer storms today, but while it was cloudy most of the day, it didn't rain at all, so we got to be outside as long as we needed. Our first task today was to walk the length of River Street, the avenue that runs next to the Savannah River. Unlike Broughton Street, which mixes locals and visitors together, River Street is strictly touristy. The shops here can't hold a candle to the ones in Broughton: here it's all about cheap souvenirs. As always, it was nice to see water, but like all of our previous destinations the coast here isn't much to look at. Industrial buildings, a massive tree tall enough for all those gargantuan freight ships to pass under, the occasional 20-storey big-chain hotel... There is a fun peanut store with loots of different sweet and savoury varieties that you can sample! All in all, it's the last walk you should take in Sav

Bull Street, the Telfair museums, Bonaventure Cemetery

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'What a day! Today it was sunny and a balmy 28°C!! Inside a store I overheard the owner say he was from Florida and for him this qualified as "cool". Well, I live in Versailles, and for me this qualifies as August!! Our main mission today was to walk the length of Bull Street, a scenic street that runs North-to-South across the entire Historic District, all the way to Forsyth Park, crossing some of the most iconic Savannah squares in the process. Savannah has lots of small squares at the centre of each ward, with beautiful trees and normally a monument at the centre and lots of benches. It's refreshing to see benches everywhere; what with defensive architecture being par for the course now, in Versailles and Paris you barely can find a place to sit outdoors. The thing about these squares, though, is that they're all crazy mismatched in their names and monuments. Let me walk you through it: Johnson Square doesn't have a monument to Johnson, bu

Beaufort, road to Savannah, Broughton Street

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Today we had to leave Charleston behind -I didn't get to take a picture of the pineapple fountain! I'll have to go back- on another gloriously sunny day, but before heading out to Savannah, Georgia, we stopped by Beaufort, South Carolina, at the behest of our guidebook. It's a small town on the coast, and against all logic it's pronounced "BYOO-fert", because reasons. Well, this section of the guidebook was clearly written by the same guy who recommended the awful Aiken-Rhett House, because it isn't that fancy. Bay Street, which is allegedly its main street, has pretty uninteresting stores and one bookstore specialised in local literature. We had lunch at a restaurant that wasn't anything worth writing home about, and then went house-watching. This, finally, is a beautiful thing to do there, if not completely worth giving up half a day in Charleston for. There was a neighbourhood of beautiful old houses, impeccably maintained, surrounded

King Street, Nathaniel Russell House, The Battery

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We got off to a rocky start in Charleston last night when we landed at Charleston International (sigh) Airport and went to pick up our rental car. Turns out we had made a mistake in our reservation and booked the car to be returned one day early, and trying to make any change in the reservation resulted in a $400 price hike!! So we're stuck with the original booking and we'll have to spend our precious last holiday afternoon driving to the airport, returning the car, then going back into town, and then go to the airport again the next day for good... Always triple-check your dates, y'all! Today began equally ominously as it started to rain the minute we left the apartment, but thankfully it only went better from there: the skies cleared and the sun began to shine around noon, and Charleston is sooo beautiful! It's completely different from all the other Southern cities we've visited in pretty much every imaginable way. This, finally, is an actual city with walka