This year for our Mother/Daughter Weekend, mom and I went for a road trip. We meet in Raleigh, NC and headed down to Savannah, GA to see what we could find. The ride down was a lot of fun just laughing and telling stories. By the time we got to Florence, SC we decided it was time for a dinner break. I had read that The Clay Pot Coffee Shop had great grab and go food so we decided to check it out.
The reviews must of been pretty accord because when we got there, he had sold out of all of his food, even his prior day leftovers. We asked if he could recommend a place for us to grab a quick bit before hitting the road and he suggested the thai place next door, Thai House 2 Restaurant. I was excited to take mom to her first Thai restaurant, unfortunately, this place was quite a disappointment.
The service was really slow and the food quite disappointing. So after a much longer then expected detour for dinner, we made it to Savannah around 10pm and called it a night.
In the morning, we grabbed a quick breakfast from the hotel and walked down to River Street to explore. It appeared that everyone decided to stay and party until the wee hours of the night the night before because no one was out walking around on a Saturday morning. It was pretty surprising. Many of the stores weren't even opened.
We decided to try one of the on/off trolley tour companies to get the full picture and history of Savannah. We found Old Savannah Tours and loved it. We jumped on at River Street and took it a few stops until we got to the City Market.
Right across the street from the City Market was the First African Baptist Church. As soon as I saw it I remembered it from when Jed & I had visited Savannah years ago. This church was a part of the underground railroad system and they gave tours. It was something that we had wanted to do but never had the chance. So mom & I decided to check it out. As we were walking up, we learned that they were getting ready to start the tour so we were able to jump in.
This church is beautiful and we absolutely loved our tour guide, the tour, the history and all the information they gave us about past and present. If you are ever in Savannah, it is a must do in my opinion.
After our tour it was time to find some lunch. We had a whole bunch of recommendations and we decided to head to Zunzi's, it had some South Africa tea that I really wanted to try and they say the food is great. Unfortunately, we weren't the only people that had heard about how great the place was so when we saw the line go for blocks, we decided we would have to try it a different day. We tried to get into a few other places and landed on a cute, artsy place called Soho South Cafe. Mom was not impressed with the food, I liked it, but we both agreed it was strike two with food service. Not good at all. But we weren't in a hurry and it was a great area to just hang out.
We headed to the start of the trolley tour for the rest of the day. We drove around learning about the city and check out all kinds of areas and historical houses that we could go back and visit later.
We hopped off the trolley for the night on River Street. But this time it there were plenty of people out and about and all the stores were opened so we did a little shopping and stopped for ice cream at Leopold's.
As we were starting to think about dinner, we found a place advertising fried green tomatoes. Mom was pretty excited so we decided to try The Cotton Exchange. We decided that we would just do drinks and two appetizers instead of a full blown dinner so fried green tomatoes and spinach cheese dip it was. This was most definitely strike three with food. Although the service was better the food was terrible. Maybe we didn't order the right stuff or maybe it was just our luck for this trip but I don't know that we would try that place again.
We did a little more walking after dinner before heading back to the hotel for the night.
The next morning was Sunday, Mother's Day. I had no idea it was Mother's Day weekend when we planned it but it worked out perfectly. That morning we headed out for a walk, shopped at a few shops and headed back down to River Street where we boarded a boat for a Mother's Day Brunch Cruise. We had a fantastic time riding up and down the Savannah River. There was plenty of food, live music, great views and laughing.
After the cruise, we headed to the Owens-Thomas House. They allow guided tours through the house a few times a day. We were able to make the last tour of the day. It was a fantastic house. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures in the house but some very note worthy things about the house for me were: running water, flushing toilets, square room built to look like a circular shaped room and an incredible double staircase complete with a bridge at the top.
I loved doing this with my mom, so much of old homes and listing to the guides talking about designs & building them reminds me of my dad. It was just so great to be able to do that with her.
When the tour ended, we went exploring again. This time we were headed to Forsyth Park. All of the parks in Savannah are beautiful but this one is one of my favorites. It is a pretty large and busy park but it has a beautiful fountain where we just sat for a while.
Once it started to get dark, we decided to head towards dinner. We had found a great coffee shop that we had already been to twice that day for coffee and tea called Gallery Espresso.
We had seen the perfect dinner for us there, bread, cheese and fruit. So we headed back there and at dinner outside as we people watched. It was great.
On Monday, it was time to head back but not before we got one last tour in. That morning we meet up with a group of people for Savannah Walks: Historical Homes Walk. I loved getting to walk around, hear more history about the area and the homes. It was such a beautiful day.
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