A tiny restaurant in a teensy shopping strip, just before Victory Drive merges with the Islands Expressway, Wiley's Championship BBQ is a real find. It's been voted the best barbecue in Savannah multiple times in its short life, and for good reason.
With its Gothic houses, squares and Spanish moss hanging from every tremendous Live Oak, Savannah truly makes a great first impression. But far from skin-deep, its beauty only becomes more captivating the closer you look.
Our first month in Savannah had come to an end, faster than expected, and it was fun, weird and exciting as we hoped it would be. As we did after our first month in Oviedo, we completed a small self-survey of our experience, to share our initial impressions of the city.
We took a trip to Beaufort, South Carolina, which is about an hour north of Savannah. This small coastal town makes an ideal excursion, but as I realized after receiving a number of puzzled looks, it's pronounced "Beww-furt" and not "Bow-fort."
The road to Tybee Island takes you right by Cockspur Island, home to Fort Pulaski. Originally built after the War of 1812, the fort is now a national monument.
So when we discovered the Back in the Day Bakery, on the corner of Bull and 40th street, we were overjoyed. Bakeries are on almost every street in Germany, but in the States, that's not the case.
Originally called St. James Square after the famous London park, Telfair Square was renamed in 1833 in honor of Savannah's VIP-iest family. It was one the city's original four squares and, for a long time, its most fashionable district.
Photographers visiting Savannah are going to have a hard time holding to any sort of schedule... and their partners will have a hard time holding onto their sanity. During our stay in Savannah, it happened often that I lost my patience, and finally ditched Jürgen, who was again snapping photos of a random saxophone, or ivy, or a dog, or another Victorian house. "Have fun, and take your time! I'll be at the bar." I think it saved our relationship.
We had been excited to get into the old homes of Savannah, especially after our experience at the Scarborough House. So it was with high expectations that we visited the Owens-Thomas House on Oglethorpe Square. Unfortunately, our high expectations weren't met, this time.
Biking home with a fresh loaf of bread from the Back in the Day Bakery, we passed a tiny shop in which someone was at work blowing glass. Curiosity stoked, we returned to the Drayton Glassworks a couple days later to meet Jonathan Poirier.
When he founded Savannah, the capital of his newly chartered colony of Georgia, James Oglethorpe had some utopian ideas. His planned city would be built around four squares and four simple prohibitions. No rum. No slavery. No lawyers. No Papists.
There are a lot of activities you can do on Tybee Island, but one of the best is to go kayaking. We decided to take my brother, who happened to be visiting, as a surprise present for his birthday.
