Savannah

We are spending this weekend in Savannah, at the Skidaway Island State Park. The campground is great and the city of Savannah even better. We often watch programs on the Food Network and this is where Paula Deen has her The Lady and Sons restaurant. We hoped to have lunch there. It is located in an old building that has been converted for her use.



They accept reservations, but only when you show up in person to make them. When we approached the hostess at 10:40 am, they had two seats in the lounge at 1:30 and two in the dining room at 2:30. We had lunch at Panera Bread.

Savannah was established by General Oglethorpe and others from England, who started the colony of Georgia. It is a beautiful city and in the old part of town, there are lovely oases of green about every two blocks, called "squares." This one contains a fountain.



And another has a statue of Oglethorpe.



Oglethorpe was the commander of the fleet of Confederate ships that attempted to attack Fort Matanzas, which we toured at St. Augustine.

These squares were filled with beautiful trees and some had blooming azaleas.



In one of the squares, the monument has this relief of a railroad train. The monument was dedicated to a man who had built the first railroad in the area.



Like we saw in St. Augustine, many tourists see the city on special vehicles--here they look like trolleys.



We followed them around downtown to see where the sights were. Other modes of transportation included horse-drawn carriages



and pedicabs.



For a year or two as a young child I was a Girl Scout Brownie, so we had to go by the birth place of Juliette Gordon Low,the founder of the Girl Scouts, here in the city.



Her father was one of the founding members of the colony.

This is the steeple of the Presbyterian Church in the center of the city.



We also visited the Catholic Cathedral, which was beautiful inside.



Many of the downtown residential streets were lined with Spanish Moss-decked trees. This is one of the hallmarks of Savannah.



Isn't the Savannah City Hall beautiful?



Today we toured Fort Pulaski and drove around Tybee Island, where the people of Savannah go to enjoy the ocean. Fort Pulaski was one of more than 30 fortifications built to defend our nation's coast from possible European attack after the War of 1812. These forts were built of brick and at the time thought to be impregnable. This one was started in 1829. By the time of the Civil War it had never been garrisoned with soldiers. Just before Georgia seceded from the Union, the Georgia troops took over the fort. Unfortunately for the South, technology, in the form of the rifled cannon, make the fort obsolete. In only 30 hours of shelling in April 1862, by Union guns on Tybee Island, Fort Pulaski was forced to surrender and was held by Union troops through the end of the war. It successfully kept Savannah shut off from the sea, unable to ship cotton or bring in supplies and munitions.

This is a picture of the US flag with 34 stars, like was flown over the fort during the Civil War while Union troops were there.



We saw both a demonstration of musket fire



and field cannon fire.



Both were quite impressive.

This is a view of the inside of the fort.



We took this picture of the Tybee Island Lighthouse during our drive around the island.