Savannah Photos: Part 1

At last!  Photos from our Labor Day road trip to Savannah!

If you ever go to Savannah, definitely absolutely positively plan to take a bus tour of the city.  There are at least three different companies offering historic tours, and each is right around $25 a person to go.  At first, I hesitated at the cost, but after five minutes on the tour, I decided that it was worth every penny.  

Our tour guide pointed out all the historical buildings and gave stories and anecdotes and trivia about everything along our way.  She gave a solid 90 minute talking tour through the historical downtown area, and it was leaps and bounds more interesting (and efficient) than anything I could have read.  I recommend doing the whole historical tour first, and then deciding where you'd like to spend more time.  Also - if you do the tour, the left hand side of the bus always faces the park squares, and the right side of the bus faces all the historic building and houses.  I was on the left side of the bus, and didn't get to take any good photos of the buildings I immediately fell in love with.

About those squares - The city of Savannah was planned in 1733, around park-like squares.  Wikipedia has a great description of Savannah's squares:  

Each square sits (or, in some cases, sat) at the center of a ward, which often shares its name with its square. The lots to the east and west of the squares, flanking the major east-west axis, were considered "trust lots" in the original city plan and intended for large public buildings such as churches, schools, or markets. The remainder of the ward was divided into four areas, called tythings, each of which was further divided into ten residential lots.

This google map is a fantastic listing along with the year each square was established.:

 The most famous is Chippewa Square, where Forest Gump was filmed.

So, of course, while we were on our bus tour, this guy came running at our bus and our driver let him on.  And then explained that he didn't need the bus to get where he was going :)

Me!  Completely sweaty and sticky, sitting at the fountain in Johnson Square - the first square in Savannah, built in 1733.  I was sitting in a park established 278 years ago.  Crazy to think about.

I still have a whole slew of photos, including the food and the cemetery (but not together)!  My hope is to get them all up this week...