Savannah is a city that we could have just walked around for day. Every street is more beautiful than the last, every tree is more magical than the previous. Just an extremely picturesque place. We arrived in the afternoon, and met our airbnb host Erin. We had the absolute best experience with Airbnb and would without a doubt plan another trip using this site. If you haven't heard of it, it's a vacation rental website, where locals can rent out a room or house or condo, and you can rent them for a period of time. We had just a room with Erin, and she was just wonderful! She even left an umbrella for us in the morning when it was supposed to rain. Erin's house was just a little outside the heart of downtown Savannah, and a perfect walking distance from everything.
We spent the day wandering around the awesome streets. We walked through Forsyth Park, and stopped at a little natural food store, Brighter Day, for some snackies. We headed towards the water and had a brewski at Pink Masters, a very divvy, local bar, that had watered down beer and covered windows (until we hinted that, yes it would be wonderful to let the sunshine in!). For dinner we headed to Zunzis for a cocktail and dinner on the rooftop. I would definitely recommend this place, great service, great roof and great food! After dinner we spent some time by the water front, people watching and enjoying the new place. As creepy as it sounds, I promise it wasn’t; we found it extremely entertaining to watch a school of prom-goers get ready to go on their “boat prom”. The ultimate people watching entertainment: attention seeking teenagers trying to look as hot as possible. We spent a good majority of our night just laying on one of the park benches, completely content in the fact that it was late at night, and we had bare arms, feeling no chill at all (considering it was still mighty cold back in Minnesota).
We woke up on day two to rain in our happy little room. We both couldn’t contain our excitement to be in this place, even when it was rainy and humid, it was just such a great place to be. We went to Sentient Bean for breakfast, and organic, hipsterville, coffee shop. Two things that are a must when I see a new city: find an awesome breakfast and appreciate the hipsterness of this world that is, well, everywhere.
Thank you Savannah, you might be my new favorite little city.
On our way to Charleston, we stopped at the Angel Oak Tree, which is known to be massive and beautiful. Which is was, however I must admit, that to us non-locals, every tree is just as amazing as this one, so we would have been fine if it wasn’t on the list. However it’s not too far out of the way, so we didn’t lose much by making the stop. There are a lot of beautiful plantations, we chose to stop at Middleton Place for our visit. We really lucked out on this trip, in that the azaleas in this part of the country were in pretty much full bloom. They stopped us in our tracks many time throughout these four days. This made the gardens of the plantations even more amazing. It was really enjoyable to walk around the gardens, and buildings and stare at the animals. John had a great time freaking me out by sitting feet away from gators in the ponds. Thanks, John. We made our way to our next little home, just about a mile or two from downtown Charleston. For this Airbnb, we had a whole condo to ourselves. Super modern, and fancy, and trendy, and just great. I would suggest booking a trip sooner, and try and find a place to stay within walking distance to the heart of Charleston, but this was super enjoyable since we were able to rent a car. For dinner, we hit the coast for seafood at Fleet Landing. This was a really great meal, since we sat on the patio and simply because sea food is a must have when you’re on the coast. After dinner, we found the Gin Joint, which is a super quaint little place with a long list of signature cocktails and a super wonderful atmosphere. They even give a list of adjectives, and will make you your own cocktail based on your choice of two adjectives.
Day three started slowly waking in our little condo. Again, it was drizzling, and we took our time to wait out the weather. We left for Sullivan’s Island, and it turned into an awesome morning lounging on the beach. Not warm enough for swimming or swimsuits, but just as enjoyable just to be by sand and water. We stopped at Poes Tavern for lunch and had some nom nom burgers. Cool place with Edgar Allen Poe quotes hidden in corners and audio CDs of poetry playing the bathrooms. Next we drove back to the city for the Aquarium. We were distracted for a bit by a school of dolphins just hanging out right by the dock. I will never fail to be in awe of dolphins. What neat little gals. John is a huge fan of sea turtles, so we were super excited to visit the sea turtle hospital at this aquarium. We were really glad we went, but it was not quite what we expected. I think our dream expectations were hundreds of baby sea turtles and mammas smiling up at us from their cute little tanks, snuggling and nuzzling noses with them. The reality of the hospital was different, and made a lot more sense than our day dream expectations. The hospital had 5 or so adult sea turtles that had been rescued from boaters and fishers who brought them in. Most of them are found on shore or floating in the water, malnourished or injured from boats. You can’t really nuzzle nosies with sick turtles that are barely holding on. But it was extremely cool to see what this hospital is doing-strickly from donation-to get these turtles back to sufficient health. Some can’t be released back into the wild, but most can be, and a huge crowd of locals gather at the release site for a party when the day comes, which is so wonderful. After the aquarium, we stopped at Black Tap Coffee-again a typical hipster-must-see coffee joint. We walked around enjoying the tiny little streets and alleys and gardens, which are a must-see as well as hard-to-miss when in Charleston. For dinner we treated ourselves at Queen 82 with lots of wine and a to die for dinner. I had the pork chop. Sounds average right? The description is as follows…Fried Mac & Cheese, White Cheddar Sauce, Collard Greens and Peach Preserves. I had…no words…it was incredible, to say the least. We ended the night at Bin 152, which may have been one of my favorite moments of the trip. It was a super cute little wine and cheese bar, awesome atmosphere, super great décor, and lots of wine. The streets were pretty empty, the door was open, there were only a few people there, we just chatted about life and wine and those present joined us, it was just a really solid experience. After that we just wandered around the streets of Charleston late at night, laughing and enjoying.
Day four started with slowly waking again, I’m all for getting up early to explore a lot of the time, but sometimes the weather gods throw you a cloudy morning to take your time rising, it is vacation after all. I picked us up some grub from Hominy Grill, specifically the Nasty Biscuit, which seems to be another Charleston must. It was nasty indeed, in the best way, but probably would have been even a better nasty if it were fresh instead of take-out…next time! Our next stop was Cypress Gardens, which turned out to be one of the best decisions of our trip. We were able to take out a row boat, FO FREE, and row literally right next to alligators. We found it really entertaining that after we hopped in, we were told no directions what-so-ever about how to row or where to row, they just pushed us off and told us there have been a few “big ladies” out today so we should keep our eyes out for the gators. Um. Ok. We were pretty certain the lack of directions was a southern thing, and wouldn’t probably happen in the Midwest. We just couldn’t stop raving about how fun it was to be in a swamp, just rowin’ along. We felt like we were in a movie (yes, specifically The Notebook, but that was unmentioned out of respect to not be too girly). And despite the warning, the freak out that commenced upon seeing that first gator, was still present. It was just chillin’ on a log, and we got pretty darn close. It was just a little guy, but the next few we saw were definitely bigger. Another truly picturesque place, that provided just a truly awesome experience. There was also a butterfly garden and a little creepy dark aquarium that had awesome swamp creatures like snake turtles. CCC I’ve decided…for creepy cool crap. Kudo coffee was our next stop, followed by laying the park for a bit, and Monza for wonderful pizza. We were pretty tired, but still fit in one more drink at Closed for Business, a trendy little bar that had great décor. And another random amazing night cap, wandering around the streets by Battery Park. These are the really big plantation inspired houses where rich people lived. We saw them a bit in the previous afternoons, but for hours we just walked through the streets in the dark, and it was SO FUN. Mostly because at night, people have their lights on, so we saw IN the houses too. BONUS. Our stroll was made complete with pretty glowing gardens, twinkly lights on amazing porches and rich people leaving dinner parties with pastel sweaters actually tied around their shoulders. So SC.
Overall, it was just a really wonderful trip. And this trip ended up being a tiny little test – not planned, but it worked out – to see if John and I travelled well…and guess what. It rocked, and I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in crime. And passing that test allowed us to plan our next trip…stay tuned for that adventure coming soon!
And by soon, I mean hopefully soon, since clearly I’m a little behind on this bloggy.
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