A few years prior to our wedding, my wife spent a night in Savannah on a bachelorette party for one of her friends. It was her first taste of Southern charm, and she was hooked. She kept reiterating – “you’d love it there.”
That stuck in my mind and carved Savannah a spot on my “to visit” list. As we began to plan our honeymoon to Charleston, all it took was a little google-mapping to realize we’d be a mere two hours from the Hostess City of the South (full disclosure, I had to look that up; as far as nicknames go, that doesn’t really roll off the tongue like the Big Easy). As I mentioned in Part 1 of this post (Charleston – aka, the Holy City), we needed to rent a car to access some of our outside-the-city excursions; it became too convenient and too enticing to resist adding an extra stop in another beautiful, historic Southern city.
Day ONE
We had one more stop on our way out of Charleston (one more stop usually means I’ve convinced my wife to go to another brewery). It was a brewery called Edmund’s Oast. It was a ways out of the city and had a bit of a small-scale destination brewery / soccer bar vibe with a large courtyard, brick oven pizza, and old school pinball. After we split a flight and a pie, we hopped back in the car for a carefree, scenic cruise down the coast to Savannah.
We were blessed with days of perfect weather over the course of our honeymoon. We were cursed with three hours of angry, torrential rain on the way to Savannah (remember earlier in the post when I said the cities were only two hours apart? Three hours of rain was not a typo; the weather added at least an hour to the trip).
The Hostess City of the South greeted us with a break in the storm and a check-in at one of our favorite hotels we’ve ever stayed at, the Hyatt Regency Savannah (when I first started writing this, I was prepared to say our favorite; then I remembered our stay at THE ADELPHI in Saratoga). I’ll let the photos do most of the talking; but the highlights included an immense indoor courtyard and picturesque views of the Savannah River and its parade of ships.
As impressive as the hotel was, its best attribute was its proximity to River Street. Apropos to the name, the street separated the waterfront from a lively downtown of bars, shops, and restaurants. Our first stop was Moon River Brewing Company. You’ll come for the inviting courtyard and stay for the first and only (and therefore, necessarily, best) sweet potato flavored beer I’ve ever tried. We continued on to a rooftop bar called the Electric Moon Skytop Lounge. Honestly, the place can only be described as a literal adult playground; the rain made indulgence impossible, but the indoor/outdoor bar spanned two stories separated by – what else – a slide.
New Realm Brewing Company provided a quick bite for dinner and some good beers (along with some quaint live music) before we cashed the invitation we received that morning in Charleston and made our way to the elusive Peacock Lounge. The bar had two entrances – one via the back of an unassuming Chinese restaurant, the other down an equally unassuming set of stairs. The dimly lit speakeasy effortlessly fused prohibition era noir and southern style and became the perfect backdrop for a couple well-crafted cocktails and a relaxing end to our first night in Savannah.
Day Two
In case you glossed over the itinerary for day 1, we hit up a lot of different establishments. Accordingly, day 2 started with a brisk walk down the riverfront to grab some caffeine from Black Rifle Coffee Company. From there, we made our way back up from the water’s edge and wandered (my wife’s code word for shopping) through the vibrant city squares.
Like many Southern cities, the city’s downtown area was centered on several large, outdoor parks known as squares. Scores of shops and restaurants grew outwards from the squares, and the walk provided an impromptu tour of some of the historic sections of the city. Plaques commemorated important locations from the Civil War, which provided an explanation of why so many antique buildings survived the Northern advance towards the end of the war – Savannah was apparently so beautiful that General Sherman forbade his men from razing or pillaging the city, and actually presented Savannah to Abraham Lincoln as a “gift” after it was surrendered. Despite the urban-antebellum visage, the buildings and city didn’t feel old; the aged structures seemed instead to serve as decorative bookends linking the city’s past with its modern, inviting present.
From that point on, we spent the afternoon exploring the riverfront. The cobblestone streets were inhabited by a sprawling mix of shops, restaurants, bars, and street art. We grabbed a quick lunch on the water before wandering (this is a deliberate word choice) to Service Brewing Company, another new, hanger themed spot just off the water (that happens to be owned and operated by veterans). We enjoyed good beers and got some Savannah pointers from our local bartenders. Those suggestions led us down the street another brief walk away to Ghost Coast Distilling Company.
Now, I know it sounds like we went to a ton of bars on this trip, but we were really sharing flights at most of the breweries and taking it pretty easy. There is no “taking it easy” option when you sample cocktails at a distillery. Due in no small part to the quality (and, correspondingly, quantity) of liquid we tasted at Service and Ghost Coast, we bought a couple of souvenir shirts (both places had great merchandise) and made our way back to our hotel to relax and watch the cargo ships traverse the river as we got ready for dinner.
There were a lot of options for dinner in Savannah. We had heard really good things about places like The Grey and The Olde Pink House, but our choice on where we’d eat the last dinner of our honeymoon was confirmed earlier in the week in Charleston – we were going to Savannah’s iteration of Husk.
Our faith was rewarded with another perfectly curated menu (we tried red snapper as an appetizer before digging into some swordfish and beef flank). After dinner, we made our way towards the entrance to the Colonial Park Cemetery. Without context, that probably sounds like a weird way to spend the last night of a honeymoon; the proper context is that we were getting ready for the highly recommended Ghost City ghost tour, a walking tour of the haunted history of downtown Savannah (we selected the “beyond good and evil” tour). There are two preliminary points worth mentioning if you so choose to take this tour: (1) Savannah is an open-container city, so you can feel free to walk around / tour the city / “wander” with a beer or cocktail in hand and (2) if you get to the tour early, there is an inviting Irish pub called McDonough’s right next to the departure point at which you can pick up some to-go drinks for the walk.
While branded a ghost tour, the highlight of the tour was getting to see the historic portion of the city at night. Just a few blocks away from the energetic, modern nightlife, we strolled amongst gas-lit street lamps and absorbed the grandeur of celebrated Southern architecture. If we weren’t stopping every few minutes to be regaled with stories of unexplained murders, one might even say it was a romantic way to wrap up a honeymoon.
That is not to say that the tour wasn’t entertaining. The stories were essentially an on-location true crime documentary, and the city was the perfect setting – an amber hue resonated from the gas lanterns onto the trees draped with Spanish moss and fostered a haunting backdrop.
As the tour finished (make sure you bring some cash to tip your tour guide), we worked our way back to the hotel and walked down the waterfront to finish up our last night in the city.
Day Three
Our flight home departed in the afternoon, so we decided to sneak in one last excursion and visit Tybee Island. Tybee Island is a tourism driven beach town that is about 25 minutes east of Savannah. We had just enough time to explore the town, enjoy an ocean-view lunch at Fannie’s on the Beach (we recommend trying the Bangin’ Beach Shrimp), and walk down the Tybee Beach Pier before making our way back to the Savannah / Hilton Head Airport.
The airport was relatively small and very easy to navigate (if you’re in the area early, there is a large outlet mall minutes away). We were able to promptly return our rental car and get through security with plenty of time to enjoy one final Savannah delicacy – Leopold’s Ice Cream (there is a brewery in the airport, as well, but it is set up before you get through security).
Although we didn’t spend nearly enough time in Savannah to explore all the opportunities we heard about (as a baseball fan, it kills to have not seen the Savannah Bananas play), the city lived up to its moniker as the Hostess City of the South. And even as we flew home and thought our Southern swing was at an end, something (maybe voodoo?) would draw us back mere months later.
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