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

Welcome to Savannah!

 

Gorgeous fountain at the Savannah airport

Welcome to Savannah, Georgia, the famous state known for their peaches. Haaa!! Not really true, as we found out. Actually, South Carolina grows more peaches than Georgia. And Georgia grows more blueberries than any other state in the U.S. Georgia should be called the "blueberry state", not the Peach State! 

We landed at the Savannah airport, and noted that even the airport is pretty, adorned with gardens and fountains! Our flights were all fine, and the weather here is ideal with temps in the 70’s—perfect for wandering this charming city.

Live oaks covered with Spanish moss

On our first full day, we took the hop on hop off trolley bus (the HoHo) for an introduction to the historic district. Savannah has a unique layout with twenty-two squares, each one filled with big, old live oak trees covered with Spanish moss. Unlike our oaks at home, these live oaks are evergreens and never lose their leaves. Surprisingly, the Spanish moss is not a harmful parasite but a helpful plant that removes pollution from the air.

At the fountain in Lafayette Square

Each square is named for a famous person, and Anne was thrilled to discover Lafayette Square named, of course, for her favorite Frenchman who visited here on his return to the U.S. in 1825. A passerby must have seen how excited she was and kindly took this pic of the two of us in front of Lafayette’s fountain.

Mercer-Williams House

The Mercer-Williams House is Savannah’s most infamous residence because of an alleged murder that inspired the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which Anne is happily rereading. The quirky characters make the book and the movie a lot of fun, and as we are discovering, Savannah really is a quirky place (which is just right for us).

Savannah's pastel-colored houses

Our trolley drove past a street of pretty pastel houses, and our bus guide explained that the houses were painted different colors so drunken husbands could find their way back home. Savannahians really love their liquor, and people walk around with drinks in plastic to-go cups, which is perfectly legal down here. Crazy!

A character in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil says you can tell a lot about a place by the first question locals ask a visitor. In Atlanta, they ask, “What business are you in?” In Macon, “What church do you go to?” But in Savannah, the first question is, “What would you like to drink?”

Generous family-style meal
at Mrs. Wilkes

We left the HoHo to eat lunch at Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House, an iconic Savannah restaurant with family-style dining. We were seated at a large table with group-sized plates of fried chicken and meatloaf, plus about a dozen bowls of side dishes. Our favorite side was collard greens, which we had never eaten before. We enjoyed the experience, but with a long wait to get in, we thought Mrs. Wilkes was a bit of a tourist trap.

 

Drinking at Wet Willie's

We ended our first day with a light dinner at Wet Willies, a restaurant known for their large selection of to-go cups. (Unlike most patrons, we drank inside.)

More pics of this lovely city:

Armstrong House with cast iron fencing copied
from Buckingham Palace

St. John the Baptist Cathedral

Another stunning Savannah home

Waiting to eat the famous fried chicken at
Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House

More Savannah opulence

James Oglethorpe,
founder of the colony of Georgia