Mountains, Zombies & Disney Roadtrip - Day 6 - 24 HRS in Savannah

[miss_mouse]

Trip Report Index

US ROADTRIP – TENNESEE – ALABAMA – GEORGIA & FLORIDA
Day 6 – Wednesday 11th July – 24 Hours in Savannah



Just to start, I'm Lisa - the planner and reporter. Ade is my hubby and he's our driver and there's Hollie who turns 19 on this trip and Louis is 16.

Ok, so a little over 24 hours in Savannah.
We arrived last night at 8pm and we left tomorrow at 9.30am.
But it was one full day to explore.

We had completely planned out today.
We knew exactly what we wanted to do, go and eat. When you only have a short time somewhere you have to be organised.

There was one thing…..the world cup was on. England vs Croatia. 2pm our time.

I knew it was important to Louis. I knew Ade wanted to watch it too but wouldn’t have made a fuss, so we made the plans work for us. Getting out early, exploring, coming back for 2pm for some down time and then back out for dinner and more exploring. It was also planned to be a really hot day. High 90’s so the football was perfect timing as it meant we had lots of time wandering this morning and we could come back for the hottest part of the day to recoup.

We were up before our alarms. Me with excited butterflies and in the shower before 6am.
We were out the door just after 8am.



Our little house.



And this was taken from the door step facing one way.



And facing the other in the direction that we wanted to go.
That’s our car there that stayed put the whole time.



And a few more feet away.
Isn’t it the most beautiful road?
It really was everything that I wanted Savannah to be and imagined.
It was perfect.

Our plan was to walk to the Mirabelle Café for breakfast.

I’d bought the trolley bus tour online and there was a stop just opposite and we wanted to be on the first one.



This is the Beach Institute just a couple of houses down from us.



And this was our closest square over on the other side of the road as we crossed.



There’s a plaque on the right by the red house which we read the following day and learnt that the composer of Jingle Bells lived there. Which also explained why the house we were staying in was called ‘Jingle Bells Cottage’.



We were staying on East Harris Street.



And then we came to the Cathedral.





Which faced the café that we wanted to Visit.





I found this place in Instagram and had been following them for a few months.
Their Belgium waffles looks amazing and that’s what we were coming for.
The place is owned by a couple who love Europe and bought the Belgium waffles to Savannah.
They have a beautiful B&B here too.





It was just as cute inside and the staff really friendly.



Proper fluffy coffee.



And amazing waffles with a beautiful view.



There were seats inside but obviously we wanted to be outside.





Hot and made to order. Amazing!

We then crossed the road and waited for the first trolley. We had an app so you could see where they were. It had started at stop 1 quite some time ago.
An American family walked past and asked if we were watching the football at 2pm!



Jon was our driver. Friendly, chatty and really easy to listen to.
We stayed on for quite some time listening to his stories.
We planned to take the trolley all the way down to the river and get off at River Street.





It’s a little cobbled road along the river with mostly tacky gift shops.







Hollie added to her collection.
I bought a Savannah tree deccie.


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[miss_mouse]

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I’d like to do a boat trip next time.



We spent quite some time in the Savannah Honey store. The staff were so chatty in there. The boys love honey. They sampled lots and bought lots.
They were told that some of it was local honey when we asked how local we were told Florida. A good 5 hours away to us is not local. Our local honey come from a couple of roads away from someone’s back garden. Ade swears by it for his hay fever.





We now left River Street and walked back up again to the road.
I’ve heard lots of people say that River Street is their favourite part. There are some lovely restaurants around there too, but to be honest, it was ok, but was our least favourite part. We preferred being around the tree lined squares around all the beautiful buildings.





We saw the Old Savannah Cotton Exchange Building. And this was also the little tree dec that I’d just bought.



Using Google Maps we now walked to the infamous Leopold’s Ice Cream.
On the trolley Jon had said that sometimes the queues can stretch to 2 hours long. So we planned to get there for 11am for opening.







Now this place has been going since 1919.
It was started by 3 brothers from Greece. One of the brothers, Peter, it’s his youngest son Stratton Leopold that took over the family legacy. He later left Savannah and became a Hollywood film director in films such as Mission Impossible 3 & The Sum of all Fears.
He still owns Leopold’s and still stops by apparently.

We all ordered a cup each.
I’m not a huge ice cream fan, I love my own homemade, but I struggle anywhere else.
I had loved the ice cream in Chattanooga the other day and was one of the best I’d ever had.
I chose Georgia Peach today and expected it to be super fruity almost like a mango ice cream which is one of my favourites but it was abit MEH! And I ended up binning it. It was so creamy and couldn’t really taste the fruit.
The others all liked theirs, but all agreed it didn’t feel like anything special, homemade and not a patch on Clumpies in Chattanooga a few days ago.



Lilo & Stitch!

We decided to walk to the nearest trolley stop and take it to stop 1 and start from the start.



We passed through this park with these police horses just standing watching the world go by.






We got on the trolley and Jon was our driver again.
He said this place was bought by a Mum and her son from England and it was always really busy.


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[miss_mouse]

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Everywhere you look there are beautiful buildings and many of them have a story.







We had to get off at stop 1 and change to a new trolley with a new driver.
This one wasn’t as good as Jon. Her voice droned a bit. It was also very very hot. Stick to the seats hot. 97F.

I do have this day on my YouTube channel if you'd like to see more of the area and hear a little bit more. My channel is : Lollipop Box Club

We went past the Forest Gump Square which was cool.
We got off at Stop 4 above Forsythe Park.

We’d managed to see quite a lot on the trolley and hear lots of really cool stories.
For example Savannah had been left to ruin and was mostly empty back in the 80’s until a woman started turning buildings for SCAD. Savannah College of Art & Design. She started buying buildings and the town slowly built back up again. You see SCAD signs everywhere.



As we got off there was a cool looking health food store.

We let the kids choose a smoothie so they had something cold to walk back to the house with.

We wanted to walk through Forsythe Park.
It was now 1.10pm and the footy started at 2pm, so it was all working out really well.











It was such a pretty park.
We sat here for a short while and just people watched.



(they aren't holding hands!)

Then wandered back to our Jingle Bells Cottage.



Everywhere is so beautiful.

We coped with the heat better than we’d expected. The big shady trees everywhere really helped.



And we were back just in time for the footy. 1.57pm
England shirts on boys!

This all worked out really well.
We hadn’t felt rushed at all in the morning and we were very ready to come back now for some air con and a rest.
Hollie and I took showers during the first half of the footy, the boys then had super quick showers during half time.
Then England lost.
This put Louis in a really foul mood.
He laid on his bad and didn’t want to go out for dinner.

We’d decided ages ago where we wanted to go for dinner.
Hollie had found the ‘Little Duck Diner’ on Instagram and it looked so cute.
We’d signed up to the email list and got a coupon for a free appetizer.

We were ready, we dragged Louis out and headed back to the trolley stop 5 mins away outside the cathedral where we’d started the day.



We’d just missed the last trolley so headed to the restaurant on foot. It was only about 15-20 mins away and it didn’t feel quite as hot now.



Plus when the walk looks like this you really don’t mind walking.



We knew that this diner was popular so we’d planned to have an early dinner.
We arrived at 5.20pm and got seated straight away.







Isn’t it cute?!





And the menu.





We choose Cheesy Risotto Balls as our free starter.
These were amazing!



Ade had a toasted club sandwich with fries.
He said it was pan fried though and felt a little greasy.



Louis went for chicken and waffle. He said it was nice but the maple syrup was spicy which ruined it a little.

Hollie had a salmon toastie and fries and liked her’s.



I went for mac n cheese with fries.
I was really fancying this. I had visions of hot gooey cheese sauce to dip my fries in to.
I was so disappointed. The mac n cheese was solid. Definitely not for dipping and so flavourless and the fries weren’t over hot and a bit on the floppy side and flavourless too.

We all agreed that although the diner looked the part, we were all very underwhelmed and the staff match up with that too. Just no personality. A shame.
It was a $50 meal though which isn’t bad!



This area was really lovely. There was live music and lots of bars with seats outside.
It had a Covent Garden feel.



We popped in to Anthropologie, Hollie bought a bowl.



Then she bought some bits in Urban Outfitters.
I also bought my spray that smells like Disney’s Beach Club. And I bought a little dabber scent which is perfect for a handbag. It was later in the trip that Louis said it smelt just like Pandora’s Flight of Passage ride. So fresh.



We tried to get a Georgia mug in 2 Starbucks but they didn’t have one.





Then we took the walk back.



It had been such a perfect day. I felt liked we’d seen plenty and done loads.
We’d all love to go back again though and do some tours.

Another shower and we all had early nights.
Tomorrow we finally drive to Orlando.

Thanks so much for reading xx

[Melbatb]

It looks such a gorgeous place!

[Zomax25]

What a fabulous day and gorgeous place! Thanks for sharing.

[Minnie Mum]

What a lovely day. Looks a beautiful area. Great trip report title!

[miss_mouse]

Originally Posted by Melbatb

It looks such a gorgeous place!

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Thank you.
I think it's the prettiest town I've ever been to.

[miss_mouse]

Originally Posted by Zomax25

What a fabulous day and gorgeous place! Thanks for sharing.

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Thank you. I think it will go down as one of my favourite days ever!

[miss_mouse]

Thank you so much. It's such a beautiful city!

[Dutchdisneyfan]

You find the best places!
Would love to visit here <3