Voodoo, Serial Killers, and a Memorable Last Meal

River Street taken from the water

For our last full day, we headed to the Savannah River for a sedate jaunt along the riverfront. Savannah sits on a bluff about forty feet above sea level, so we snuck into the Hyatt Hotel to use their elevator to get down. River Street feels like a different, rowdier world from the stately one above it. True to its name, the street runs along the river's edge and is lined with curio shops, restaurants, museums, and even a couple of paddleboats.

 

Riding the ferry

We took a free ferry ride on the Juliette Gordon Low (named for the founder of the Girls Scouts who was born here) to get a different perspective from the water. 

The Waving Girl statue

The short hop took us to the lower end of the street where we paid our respects to the Waving Girl statue. This statue honors Florence Martus who faithfully greeted every ship that entered the harbor for 44 years and became a well-known figure to sailors around the globe.

 

Two-headed animal

Next, we decided to take a walk on the "odd side" with a visit to the Graveface Museum. This museum of curiosities had one whole room filled with freakish things like a five-legged calf, a two-headed animal, shrunken heads, a voodoo skull, and much more. Roman, the young curator, told us the building once belonged to a famous voodoo priestess, and he further showed us a hidden panel with a voodoo altar behind it (which he said he had discovered when he moved in).

 

The old pinball wizard in action

Another room was devoted to a dozen or so pinball machines, and Anne, pinball wizard that she is, was thrilled to dive into the fast-paced action of these paddle-flippin' attractions of the past!

 

Jim Jones' sunglasses

Other rooms displayed memorabilia on infamous serial killers. These included treasures like Charles Manson’s sweatpants and Jim Jones’ sunglasses.

 

John Wayne Gacy clown painting

One of the weirdest rooms of all had actual artwork of John Wayne Gacy -- i.e., dozens of creepy clowns and some very disturbing paintings of Disney characters, especially the Seven Dwarves (but never Snow White). 

Disney dwarves by John Wayne Gacy

Gacy supposedly earned over $400,000 selling his art and used the money to pay his defense lawyers.

 

The Boar's Head Tavern

Needing a palate-cleanser after all that, we hit a local bar along River Street called the Boar's Head Tavern for a beer and a red peach sangria. 

Tabby sidewalk with a prominent display of
crushed oyster shell aggregate.

Everywhere in Savannah you see the unique construction material called "tabby." Tabby is an ancient colonial concoction similar to concrete made from sand, charred lime from oyster shells, and an aggregate made of oyster shells. It is not as strong as concrete; however, it was the best building material of the time. 

 

City Hall overlooking the river
at the top of the bluff

Now, we just needed to figure out how to get back up the bluff. By the way, a public elevator usually solves this problem, but it was out of commission. We retraced our steps and tried to get back into the Hyatt, but the door we used before required a hotel card to access. We started to hike up the bluff, but Frank spotted the Hyatt car parking garage a short distance away, and we were able to access the elevator from there.  Haaaa!!  Even the fancy schmancy Hyatt couldn't keep the riff-raff out!

 

The elegant entrance to the
Olde Pink House

To celebrate our last night in style, we ate dinner at the Olde Pink House. This is one of Savannah’s most iconic restaurants, and we had to make our reservation several months in advance. The house was gorgeous and the service impeccable. 

 

Drinking rose in the Olde Pink House

We ate in a room that looked like a Louis XIV ballroom with lots of mirrors and chandeliers and the soft strains of Mozart playing in the background. Very posh. 

 

A most unusual flounder presentation

The food was memorable too with the best biscuits ever, and "scored flounder" covered with fruit sauce that looked like no fish dish we have ever seen. For dessert, we indulged in a praline basket filled with the creamiest ice cream (Leopold’s maybe?) topped with fresh fruit.

 

And that brings us to the end of our sojourn to Savannah. It felt so good to be on the road again, and Savannah was a fun place to explore.

 

As always, thanks for traveling with us!

 

More pics:

Charles Manson's sweatpants

Tanya Harding's ice skate

 

Football jersey signed by O. J. SImpson

John Wayne Gacy painting of
Charles Manson

Praline dessert basket at the 
Olde Pink House

 

Time to go home (sigh)

 

Bonaventure Cemetery and Foods of Savannah

Bonaventure Cemetery

Today, we communed with the dead at Bonaventure Cemetery on an excellent tour with our guide Tim. With its striking statuary, beautiful old trees, and swaying Spanish moss, this is one of the most scenic cemeteries in the country. 

Iron Confederacy marker

The place is filled with history and many of the graves display Confederacy markers to identify those who fought for the south in the Civil War.

 

Little Gracie Watson

One of the most famous gravesites belongs to Little Gracie Watson who died of pneumonia when she was only six years old. Her statue is remarkably realistic (sculpted from a photograph), and people still leave money and toys for the poor little girl.

 

Johnny Mercer's grave circled in red

Another major highlight was Johnny Mercer’s grave with a bench etched with the names of some of his most popular songs. Johnny was a prolific lyricist who wrote over 1500 celebrated songs, including hits like “Moon River,” "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" and "Days of Wine and Roses."

 

Drinking beer at the Crystal Beer Palace

Tim dropped us off at a lunch spot that is a favorite with the locals called the Crystal Beer Palace. A fun place with delicious sandwiches and sides (we are addicted to collard greens), excellent beer, and to-die-for peach cobbler.

 

Alligator meat trio!

Afterwards, we took a slow walk back to our hotel, hip-hopping from square to square. We ended our night at Alligator Soul, one of Savannah’s best restaurants with an atmospheric, below-ground location. Of course, we had to try their specialty, and a special appetizer trio gave us a sampling of alligator chorizo, alligator tempura, and best of all, candied alligator, slow-cooked and maple-glazed. Outstanding food and impeccable service.

 

Kristen gives us a honey tasting on our Foodie tour

By now, you must be thinking we ate our way through Savannah, and that’s not far from the truth. The next morning, we took a food walking tour. We love taking these tours wherever we travel to sample the food but also to learn more about the culture. This wasn’t the best food walking tour we’ve ever been on, but it was a joy to wander this lovely city.

 

The tour started well with something we have never done before: a honey tasting. Excellent presentation, and we were surprised how different various honeys tasted. 

 

Second African Baptist Church
 (MLK gave his speech in front of the brown door
 on the left)

The tour mixed history with food and other tastings included fried pork chops and more of our fave Leopold’s ice cream. Along the way, we saw the Second African Baptist Church where Martin Luther King did a dry run of part of his “I Have a Dream” speech before delivering the whole thing in Washington, D.C. Our guide Kellee also explained that the historic district is laid out in wards with a square at the center of each ward. The surrounding plots included residential housing (called tithe lots) and lots where churches, schools, and government buildings were peripheral to the square (called trust lots). The squares were the heart of neighborhood, centers of social activities and places where people would cook and hang their laundry out to dry.

 

Marked bricks to keep spirits from escaping

We stopped by the Colonial Park Cemetery where bored Union troops once displaced grave markers and altered some of the headstones--for example, changing the dates to make the deceased appear to have lived over 400 years. The pavements in this part of town had strange markings, and we learned the cemetery used to be much larger, which meant dead bodies were buried beneath our feet. The odd pavement designs were intended to contain the dead spirits and prevent them from roaming among the living.

Andrea and Sandy give Anne a lift

We had a good group on the foodie tour, but we will always remember our new friends Andrea (from Chicago) and Sandy (from Washington DC) who kept us entertained with their fun antics and tales of travel.

 

More pics:

Outside Alligator Soul Restaurant

Tallest monument in Bonaventure

Spanish moss

Cheers!

Georgia shrimp with risotto from Cha Bella

 

Anne with her booze to-go!

 

A Savannah Museum Day

Garden at the Owens-Thomas House

Today was a museum day, and we started with the Owens-Thomas house, a lovely Savannah home with an interesting history. House tours used to focus on architecture, but more recently, the tours discuss all the people who actually lived here and their backgrounds.

Former slave quarters

This house museum contains one of the few remaining slave quarters in the U.S. All of the families who lived here were slaveowners; they were also very affluent people (top 1%). The richest family owned over 400 enslaved people who worked primarily on their many plantations, while only seventeen of them worked in this house.

Anne was disturbed to learn that 40% of slaveowners were women. At the time, women were not allowed to own property, but they were permitted to keep their personal slaves after they got married. 

Historical marker with mention of Lafayette

One of our biggest surprises was learning that Lafayette stayed here during his visit to Savannah. Anne has a particular affection for Lafayette, and it seems he just won’t let us alone!

Interior bridge

The house also offers some unique architecture. An actual indoor “bridge” on the second floor links one side of the upstairs floor to the other. And huge rain-collecting cisterns on each floor provided indoor plumbing with the ability to flush a toilet back in the year 1819. As convenient as that was, the odors were pretty bad, and no other house in Savannah opted for this feature.

Our next stop was a Savannah institution called Leopold’s Ice Cream that has been dipping ice cream since 1919. Their “super premium” ice cream is some of the best we have ever eaten, very rich and creamy. Especially the decadent flavor known as “Savannah Socialite,” a concoction of milk and dark chocolate ice cream dotted with Georgia pecans and a swirl of bourbon-infused caramel. Take it from us, if you are ever in Savannah, and you are chocolate lovers like we are, you do not want to miss this preposterous, potent, palate-pleaser!

A secret flask that looks like a pretzel

Our second museum stop was the Prohibition Museum, the only one of its kind in the U.S. Tons of detailed information and memorabilia, like secret whiskey flasks that look like cameras and real eggs with their yolks replaced with booze and the hole in the egg sealed with wax. I’ll take a dozen or two lol!

A new recruit for organized crime!

A couple other interesting tidbits (out of many) about the way prohibition continues to impact us: Prohibition made Walgreens what it is today because of the many prescriptions they filled for “medicinal whiskey.” And our own extensive penal system is a direct result of the numerous prohibition-era incarcerations. Of course, we know prohibition resulted in the growth of organized crime, but it also gave outsized power to the FBI and other government agencies. The southern rum runners were the forerunners of NASCAR (Frank says everybody knows that from watching the Dukes of Hazzard, but it was news to Anne). And the anti-drink movement had major ramifications for women who used what they learned about protests when they became suffragettes!

Mixing up the Chatham Artillery Punch

We wrapped up our visit at a recreated Speakeasy where we had to press a button on an unmarked door and whisper through a small opening in the door, “Gus sent me” to gain entry. We shared a tasty cocktail called a Chatham Artillery Punch, an unusual prohibition-era combination of rum, bourbon, and something fruity.

Loving those Na Na Noodles!

At the end of our day, we found the Flying Monk Noodle House where we spent our dinner hour enjoying a delightful Vietnamese repast. It hadn’t been our first choice, but it was a great little place where we were deluged with authentic Asian foods. Frank slurped up his fave Pho Bo (noodle soup with chards of beef), and Anne ate something called Na Na Noodles, which was like a combination of her favorite Thai dishes Drunken Noodles and Pad Thai.

More pics:

A rare collection of enslaved people's names
 (their names were normally not documented)

Leopold's old-fashioned ice cream counter

Best ice cream ever!

Funny sign in gift shop

Lifelike image of the infamous Carrie Nation

Destroying perfectly good whiskey