Savannah Day 2 - 6/24/16

Today we went back into Savannah but this time we rode the tour trolley to a stop and then got off to visit a location and then got back on the trolley to ride it to the next location.  Here are the places and sights we visited.

This is the Independent Presbyterian Church.  It was originally built in 1819 but was destroyed by fire in 1889 and replaced by a new church built to the same design in 1891.  It has the tallest steeple in Savannah.  If you ever saw the movie "Forrest Gump" you might recognize it.  At the beginning of the movie a feather is floating down from a church steeple and this is that steeple.

As the feather floats down, Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump) is sitting on a park bench and he talks about life being like a box of chocolates because you never know what you are going to get.  For the movie, they set up a park bench on the edge of Chippewa Square right where the One Way sign is today.

When the plan for Savannah was laid out in the the 1730s, it was designed around 24 squares in a grid pattern.  22 of those squares still exist.  Chippewa above is one of them.  Here are others.

This one is Lafayette Square with just a simple fountain in it.

This is Reynolds Square and the memorial is to John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church.

This is Chippewa Square.  The statue is a memorial to General James Oglethorpe, founder of Savannah and Georgia.  What is confusing is that there is an Oglethorpe Square but this memorial isn't in it.

This memorial is in Franklin Square and is dedicated to a black military unit that came to Georgia from Haiti and fought with the Continental Army against the British in the battle of Savannah during the Revolutionary War.  The drummer boy on the left is Henri Christophe who later led the Haitian independence movement and became the King of Haiti.

Just east of Franklin Square is Market Place with lots of shops and restaurants.

One of the buildings we visited was the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.  Here is an outside view.

Here is a view down the main aisle of the church.

And a view of the main altar.

Lots of stained glass.  Here is the Rosette window over the main entrance.

This is the large stained glass window to the left of the altar.

And to the right of the altar.

This is another example of the streets lined with live oak trees.

This is the house where Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts was born.

And this building was the original headquarters of the Girl Scouts.

This is Colonial Park which was the second city cemetery.  It operated from 1750 to 1853.  It was also known as the Dueling Ground as gentlemen that wanted to settle affairs of honor would settle their arguments there.  It was convenient as the loser didn't have to go very far to get buried.

This house was owned by an iron merchant and he believed that anything you could make in wood, he could do better in iron.  All the white woodwork on the house is actually ironwork.  It is a very attractive house.

This is the oldest house in the state of Georgia and dates from 1734.  Now it is part of the dining room of a restaurant.

This is a row of shops and restaurants along the river bank.  These used to be cotton warehouses.  On the back side there are footbridges crossing over the road that runs behind the warehouses.  The cotton buyers would stand on these bridges and the cotton sellers would drive their wagons under so that the buyers could inspect the load.  For many years cotton was king in Savannah and at its peak there were only two places that set cotton prices: Savannah and Liverpool.

Savannah is still a major port city and here is a shot up the Savannah River.  You can see the bridge going over to South Carolina, a small ferry boat that takes travelers across to the hotel and convention site on Hutchison Island and one of the container ships that use the port of Savannah.  The river used to be 12 feet deep, it has been dredged to 42 feet to handle large ships and is in the process of being dredged to 46 feet to handle the larger ships that will be using the new Panama Canal.

This Georgian mansion was built in 1771 for one of Savannah's cotton merchants.  It is now a first class restaurant.

Tomorrow is a travel day.  We will flush out our holding tanks, then disconnect the sewer, water and electrical connection and then hit the road.  Tomorrow night we will be in Advance, NC for an overnight stay and then on to Williamsburg, VA.

Savannah has been a great city to visit.  Very picturesque with a lot of interesting sites and history.  Only real problem is that summer is not the right time to visit.  It hit 97 today and was very humid.  It's actually hotter here then what we see in Florida.