So we've been in Charleston for 2 1/2 years now and still hadn't made it down to Savannah. Since we're planning a big family vacation this summer, we decided to make our anniversary trip a short one this year. It turns out it's only about two hours from our house to Savannah, so this worked out great! I took Friday off and Nicole had a half day. We made late dinner reservations (because I procrastinated) so that meant a late lunch would work perfectly. We arrived at our Airbnb right around 2:00 PM. It was an hour before check-in but our host insisted it was fine to go ahead and get the key.

Friday

Our Airbnb was PERFECT! It was right off of Madison Square, which put us about halfway between River Street and Forsyth Park. It's the ground floor of a four-story brownstone. The bedroom/living room was combined (which worked well) and then there was a dining room and a full kitchen! I didn't take pictures of the interior since there are already great ones in the listing. Moira - our host - had a personalized greeting on the chalkboard along with a special treat for our anniversary in the fridge. It's those kinds of personalized touches that make us continue to use Airbnb.

The only issue - and I struggle even calling it that - was the ceiling height. I'm a tall dude, and this is something I am pretty used to by now. I think if you were 6'6" (2m for people not accustomed to freedom units) or taller, you might struggle in this apartment.

After lugging all our stuff - way too much for 48 hours! - into the apartment, we headed off for lunch. We had gotten a couple recommendations from folks and settled on Little Duck Diner. It's a newer addition to one of the local restaurant groups and is styled so neatly! Also, the drinks come with little duckies.. that you get to keep!

Nicole doesn't love this picture but it's the only one I have that captures the diner motif.



After lunch, we decided to do some wandering. The weather was pretty damn near perfect. The breeze made it chilly at times but in the sun it was just glorious! We headed down to River Street. To get from Bay Street to River Street, your best bet is to use one of the numerous sets of "Historical Stairs." Okay, these things are historical death traps! The steps are narrow and steep. Going down, you've got a good chance at dying. Going up, it feels like you're doing lunges.

One of the coolest things about Savannah is their liberal open container law. If you're in the historic district - basically anywhere in Savannah you'd be wandering - you can have alcohol as long as it's in a plastic cup. We noticed this sort of thing in Europe and thought it was great. People enjoying a beautiful day down by the river or in a park with a glass of wine just makes sense! We stopped at a little Irish bar on River Street to get our walking beers and then went out to the river.







After a bit of meandering, we made our way back to the apartment to get all dolled up for drinks and dinner. We planned it so Friday night would be our fancy dinner and Saturday night we could take it more casually. By some miracle, I convinced this hottie to go with me.

Our drinks stop was quite close to our apartment, and delicious! It's called Artillery Bar and is up there with some of the best bars I've had the luck at which to drink. We tried to take our patented long-arm selfie, but the bartender was having nothing of that.

The prices here were up there with - or maybe a touch higher than - Charleston, which was a bit surprising. The drinks were well worth it though. I had The Doc, which is made into a glass that is flavored with pipe tobacco. It's a really neat process that looks cool but also produces a result that adds to the drink. This is the second drink like this I've had, and I have to say that their method appears to be superior. At Crow & Quill in Asheville, they mix the drink in a vase and blow the the pipe smoke into it with a smoke gun and tube. At Artillery Bar, they use a torch to light the pipe tobacco on a saucer and then place the glass upside down on top and let it sit while they mix the drink. It is well executed and brilliantly flavored.

After a drink, we headed off towards our dinner destination - the very highly recommended Olde Pink House. Yeah, they don't have a website. That's a bit weird, but it will make sense later. The Olde Pink House is, well, an old, pink house. Above ground is the regular restaurant, and they have a tavern in the basement that has live music. We got there about 90 minutes before our reservation and they checked us in and escorted us downstairs. The tavern was quite busy, but we ended up getting a couple seats at the bar with not too long a wait. We ordered some wine and an appetizer (goat cheese stuffed artichokes). The wine was delicious and the app was good enough. Right around 9:00 PM, a hostess found us at the bar and walked us back upstairs to our table.

Let me preface this bit with a little personal note. I know I've had a reputation as a bit of a pessmist or a negative guy in the past. I'm trying - very actively - to change that. Also, we live in Charleston. We are very spoiled with great restaurants run by great chefs. If you don't bring your A Game in Charleston, you don't last.

While our arrival was handled very professionally - personalized greeting, escorted to tavern - our server seemed a bit disinterested. She did not appear to be very knowledgable about the menu items, nor did she wish to go in to details about anything. I ordered the grilled pork loin, which came with sides of collard greens and a sweet potato with bourbon vanilla sauce. The pork loin was, quite possible, the best I've ever had! It was moist and so flavorful! The collards would be best described as "end of the night" collards. They were seasoned well, but not as crisp as I'd prefer. To be fair, we had 9 PM reservations and you can't just whip up a batch of collards to order.

Nicole ordered the duck, of course. It was.. okay. The sides that it came with were vegetable crepes and fruit salad. I have no idea what the thought process was with that - really confusing.

So.. all that being said, the fact that they don't seem to have a website makes sense now. To me, this is the classic old restaurant that does not really have a top tier executive chef putting forth a focused culinary vision. The food is good enough and well prepared but it doesn't have a unified vision and some of the parings just don't make sense. It was a good experience, and I'm glad we went, but I probably would steer others to somewhere else now that I've experienced it.

After dinner, we picked up a pedicab for our ride home and got plenty of suggestions and recommendations for our Saturday.

Saturday

Nicole is training for a half marathon, again. Lucky for me, she got her longer run in on Thursday, so we only needed to knock out a 3-miler. We woke up early and took off. Moira had already provided us with a 3-mile route her husband runs pretty frequently, so we were all set! It was a bit brisk, but just about perfect running weather. Also, at 8:30 AM, the city is still waking up, so we didn't have to do much dodging along the way.

We timed our trip perfectly for the azalea bloom!

And, we saw the famous fountain in the middle of Forsyth Park.

After our run, we drug our stinky selves over to Clary's Cafe. The special was a chicken & waffles eggs benedict so I knew what I had to do.

The potatoes were more like fat fries cut into smaller pieces, but everything was delicious! Nicole got a pecan waffle which was also quite tasty.

We went back to the apartment to wash the stink off so we could head off to explore more of Savannah. Nicole wanted to check out Forsyth Park again because they were setting up a farmers' market when we were on our run. I think she also wanted to take pictures of all the blooming azaleas.

I also caught her scoping out more flowers.

To add to all the park flowers, we did find some flower boxes too. Certainly not as many as Charleston, but there were some beauties!

We were a bit parched after all of our exploring so we started looking for a decent restaurant to solve that problem. Collins Quarter had come highly recommended, and unfortunately its popularity matched it reputation. They told us of a new sister restaurant closer to the river called The Fitzroy. I think this place will become just as popular as Collins Quarter. I think they might need to fine tune their menu a bit over the first few months, but their drinks were on point.

After quenching our thirst, we headed down to the river to check out some more of the riverside. We saw the Rousakis Plaza Echo Square and the Waving Girl statue. I tried to get video in the Echo Square but it didn't pick up the echo well enough to be worth keeping.

From the river, we decided to head over towards one of our local recommendations. Lulu's Chocolate Bar is a MUST taste experience for anyone visiting Savannah. Sure, chocolate and alcohol is a match made in heaven, but these drinks are really well thought out. Nicole got the Peanut Butter Cup.

I was torn between their interpretation of a Manhattan and Lulu's Russian. The bartender suggested the Russian and who am I to argue?!

We may have also ordered the Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie because WE'RE ON VACATION!!! It was like a gourmet Reese's Peanut Butter Cup - soooo good!

We had to get a good buzz on because we were headed to the American Prohibition Museum next, to protest! Nicole's not a great actress.

The museum was actually really great! Lots of information, pictures, and artifacts. I was surprisingly (to myself) uninformed about the Prohibition and its causes. Also, towards the end of the museum, they have a Speakeasy, where they make very yummy Prohibition Era drinks. I can't tell you the password though - you'll have to track it down yourself.

We knew we needed to experience a rooftop bar on the river, so we headed that way. We were also told that they get a bit young - what, like we're old or something?! - later in the night. We went to Rocks on the Roof at the Bohemian Hotel. The drinks were good - probably a bit better than what you'd expect at a place like this. We figured we'd just have a couple drinks and enjoy the view.

I'm the photographer, not the photographee!

It was a bit crazy up there, but we managed to have a table for four. A few minutes after we got situated, another couple walked up and we offered the other seats to them. Amee and Ciaran were visiting from London and were in the middle of their southern US tour. They decided to see some of the "real" America by going to New Orleans, Natchez, Memphis, Savannah, and Charleston. Definitely a cool idea and not one that I'm sure I'd even be up for!

We ended up hanging out with them for over three hours! It's always great fun finding awesome new people to chat with. We caught a decent sunset but I think Nicole did a good job convincing Amee that the sunsets in Charleston were better.

By about 9:00 PM, we were getting cold and hungry so we needed to get going. With all the day drinking and walking and being chilled, we just wanted to find something quick. Zunzi's had been recommended by several locals. The place is a literal hole in the wall. We ended up getting our sandwiches to go, and hoofing it back to the apartment. I got the curry chicken salad Johnny Roll and it was amazing! The Shit Yeah Sauce! is pretty great.

The final check-in of the night was the Crystal Beer Parlor. We were pretty done by this point, so I probably can't give it a fair review. The beer selection and bartender knowledge were top notch. Nicole got a cocktail (which we ended up getting to go - yay Savannah!) and couldn't even finish it. That being said, it IS a beer parlor, so get beer.

Sunday

We should know better, but Sunday Brunch is a thing in the south. We got all our walking in Sunday morning by going past four different brunch places that all had significant waits. We ended up at Soho South Cafe. This place has serious Insta potential. It looks marketed as such. The food there was pretty good, but nothing to write home about. They did have a piano player towards the end of our meal.

It was a bit gray and icky out Sunday, so I'm kind of glad we weren't staying another day. That said, I think it's still worth a three or four day trip as there was a lot of stuff we didn't get to see. Surprise surprise. Our Airbnb was also only a couple blocks from the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. It's gorgeous from the outside, and supposedly even more beautiful on the inside. I didn't get a good picture on Saturday because there was a funeral going on when we went by and I didn't feel like taking pictures was appropriate. It was grayer on Sunday, but the building is still very impressive.

We got one final selfie (courtesy of a tree branch) near Madison Square.

Thanks!!!

• Doug and Kristina for doing some scouting for us on your trip. Sorry we couldn't re-create your amazing GoPro videos.
• Debbie for giving Nicole the lowdown on good places to go.
• Moira for providing such a warm and wonderful spot for us to call home for our brief stay in Savannah! Link to her listing again. Seriously, if you're in Savannah, you should stay here!