Exploring Savannah I

Monday 11.08

We started our Savannah city tour after breakfast. The city was planned by British general James Oglethorpe. Brilliantly, he planned the orthogonal streets around garden squares. In the course of time, the number of squares grew to presently 22. These green squares with grass, broad oaks, monuments etc together with the pretty, old houses, make the city very appealing.

The hot and humid weather made the walk quite tough. But reaching the lovely Forsyth Park, which had a nice playground made the kids forget the heat.  

In front of the neo-gothic Green-Meldrich house, used by general Sherman during the civil war.

The boys at one of the many garden squares

In the Forsyth park. The fountain at the end was used in several movies incl. Forrest Gump.

At the playground in Forsyth park

Me in front of one of the many pretty houses

 Most of the historic houses had the entrance one level up. We noticed some similar houses in London along the Thames this spring.

En enormous oak tree. Being around 300 years old, the oak has witnessed the arrival of the English, the revolution, as well as the civil war.  

We had lunch in the "The Pirate's House" which is an old tavern, originally built to house the gardener of an experimental garden, or botanical garden, established by the English (to see whether you could grow the commercially important wine, finding that cotton and rice were the crops to cultivate) which later became an inn, notorious for having its costumers kidnapped by pirates while sleeping there. Robert Louis Stevenson makes reference in "Treasure Island" to captain Flint dying in one of the rooms in the Pirate´s House. He may have been a historical person.

The Pirate´s house

 Having lunch in the Pirate´s house (I had deep fried catfish, which was quite good)

 Nasty pirates...

The house had secret tunnels by which pirates could disappear with kidnapped victims. A policeman found himself aboard a vessel heading for a distant destination after having had a drink too much at the tavern and spent years travelling back to Savannah.