Savannah, Georgia

Visited Jan. 14-19, 2021

By Janell

If you haven’t been to Savannah, you may have at least heard how beautiful it is. One of the reasons Savannah is a beautiful city is because of its charming, historic squares.

It all started in 1732 when General James Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia in what was then British America, to serve as a buffer between the Carolinas and Spanish Florida. He then founded and designed the city of Savannah in 1733.

Oglethorpe developed a town plan in which the basic design unit was called a ward. A ward consisted of four residential blocks and four civic blocks all arranged around a square. The residential blocks, called tything blocks, each contained ten houses. Thus, each ward housed 40 families. He started with four of these wards and then added two more. By the end of that century six more wards were added, and by 1851 there were a total of 24 squares.

Currently there are 22 squares, and today they are beautiful parks that double as community gathering places throughout the historic district. We visited several of these picturesque squares on a historical walking tour.

 

Liberty Square

 

Savannah City Hall

 

Bonaventure Cemetery became famous when it was featured in the 1994 novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, and in the subsequent movie. It’s a beautiful and peaceful place adorned with lots of Spanish Moss. A couple of famous people are buried here: Johnny Mercer and Conrad Aiken."Who?", you ask. I'll tell you.

Johnny Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer who wrote the lyrics to more than 1,500 songs including “Moon River”, "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" and “That Old Black Magic”, to name a few.

Conrad Aiken was an American writer and poet whose works were published between 1914-1970, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1930.

BTW, Spanish Moss is not actually a moss at all, nor is it native to Spain. It is from the Bromeliad family, and the “Spanish” part stems from its likeness to the long beards of the Spanish conquistadors. Who knew? We didn’t!

 

Bonaventure Cemetery

The Savannah River

 

 

We did a food tour, and one of the eateries was B&D Burgers, where we ate alligator sliders! Kind of tasted like crab cakes.

B&D Burgers is loaded with gator decor

We stayed at an RV park just 15 minutes from downtown Savannah called Red Gate Campground, aka Red Gate Farm, and it actually was a farm. Check out some of the animals that campground guests can visit.

 

 

 

Out for some morning exercise – in front of our motorhome

Haunted tours, anyone? The campground staff certainly has a sense of humor!