Savannah!

And just like that  - our vacation to Savannah is over.  We had a nice time together as a family.  Nothing like being together 24/7 for 4 days to really bond your family. 

We got to Savannah around lunch time and had lunch at The Pirates' House.  A portion of this building is the oldest building in the state of Georgia.  It was originally opened as  an inn and tavern   but it wasn't long after it opened that a bunch of pirates took the place over as their hang out, hence the name The Pirates' House.

On the porch of the Pirates' House.

After lunch we walked from our hotel on Bay Street to visit Colonial Park Cemetery.  It was the original cemetery in Savannah. It looks fairly empty but that's because Sherman's Union soldiers used it as a campsite during the war so most of the stones were moved or destroyed.  Apparently they also slept in many of the mausoleums and just tossed the remains aside.  Also, at one point the city built a fence and a road over part of the cemetery so those graves were just covered over. Many of the old headstones are now hanging on a fence.  It wouldn't be a Cotell vacation if we didn't explore the old cemeteries!

After that we made our way to Forsyth Park and along the way visited some of the 22 city squares.

Then we headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner.  Our hotel had a rooftop pool and this was the view:

On Thursday morning we too a hop on hop off tour through the city.  This gave us a great view of the entire historic district and we learned a lot of history of the city as well. 

After the tour, we walked back to Forsyth Park and had lunch at Betty Bombers which is more of a local joint (not touristy) in the American Legion building.  The burgers there were excellent and they had WWII memorabilia on the walls.

We headed back through town to our hotel enjoying more of the squares along the way.  Here is the exact spot where Forest Gump sat on his bench in the movie.   The bench is now in the Savannah History Museum at the Visitor's Center. 

Then we drove to the Wormsloe Historic Site.  We learned all about the beginnings of Georgia here.  Our tour guide was really good and the whole tour was very informative.  If you ever go to Savannah I recommend a visit here.

And the entrance is a 1 and 1/2 mile driveway lined with 400 live oaks.  Gorgeous!  These photos don't do it justice.

After dinner on Thursday we took a ghost tour.  Our tour guide was probably new and still learning his lines and that made me nervous. It always seemed he was on the verge of forgetting what he was going to say.  Also, his stories were horrible.  Either there are no good ghost stories in Savannah or he just messed them all up.  The best part of the tour was that we got to go into the house where Juliette Gordon Lowe (founder of the Girl Scouts) died.  Also we go to see the old ships chandler and they made that part of the tour very spooky. 

Friday morning was rainy so we drove out to Bonaventure Cemetery.  The movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was filmed there.  We downloaded an app that you were supposed to be able to use as you drove through the cemetery which would give information about the historical people and where they were buried.  The app was horrible and not worth the 4.95 we paid.  So we used the cemetery map we found online to see the graves we were interested in.

We then headed back to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist for the Good Friday service.  The cathedral was beautiful.  I didn't get any pictures of the inside because the service was going on.

And it was pouring rain on Friday so these pictures were taken the day before!

Thankfully it stopped raining because after we left the Good Friday service, we immediately went to River Street and hopped on a tour boat and went on a dolphin tour on the river.  We saw approximately 15 dolphins on the river/

At one point there was a pair of them that kept coming out of the water in unison.  It was really neat to see but I didn't get a picture of them.

On Friday evening we had a meatless dinner at a little Italian restaurant.  And oh how I wish we could have eaten meat.  This place was authentic and our meatless entrees were delicious so I can only imagine how good the meat-full ones were! The owner spoke in a heavy Italian accent and gave everyone hugs and the place was so small that you almost felt like you were in his house. 

After dinner, we walked around the city more visiting lots of little shops on River Street and in general enjoying the scenery.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that we had ice cream at Leopold's.  Definitely visit them if you go to Savannah but be prepared to wait in a long line.

On our way back home on Saturday, we headed over to Tybee Island and went to the top of the lighthouse.

And with that, our Savannah vacation was over!