Southern charmer
Savannah, Georgia... the place for ‘best ever’ dolphins, dining, ghosts, history, sun and entertainment
Captain Derek made us stand at the back of the boat while he revved the engine, turned up the music and sped off along the coast.
Minutes later we were being followed by dolphins, jumping through the wake in twos and threes both sides of the boat, enjoying the sunshine and sea spray as much as we did.
It was the most exhilarating dolphin-spotting trip I’ve ever been on, and just one of the many “best ever” experiences during our week-long flydrive tour of Georgia, USA.
In the state capital Atlanta, we glimpsed high-rise buildings and 12-lane highways before our four-hour drive to the state’s oldest town, Savannah, and what a contrast.
Anybody who has read Gone With The Wind or seen the film knows that Atlanta was burned to the ground during America’s Civil War but, thank goodness, Savannah survived.
Now it’s one of America’s most picturesque cities – the historic district full of oak trees dripping in Spanish moss, and streets full of
elaborate Georgian houses. It was lunchtime when we arrived, and we queued outside the renowned Mrs Wilkes’ Dining Room House to be seated around communal tables for fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cornbread, sweet potatoes, creamed corn, collard greens, biscuits and gravy, green beans and coleslaw. There were 20 dishes on our table and no hope of eating it all, but at $25, including pudding and iced tea, it was another “best ever”. mrswilkes.com Our Atlanta Experience Old Savannah trolley tour driver pointed out Sorrel-weed House, one of the most haunted in a city built on old burial grounds. We saw the Second African Baptist Church where Dr Martin Luther King gave his “I Have A Dream” sermon, and he pointed out Chippewa Square, where Tom Hanks played his famous bench scene in Forrest Gump. atlcruzers.com, $31 Later we walked the mile-long Bull Street from Forsyth Park towards the golden-domed City Hall near lively River Street. In temperatures nudging 30ºc, we were thankful for shady squares. You won’t see the Tom Hanks bench as it’s in Savannah History Museum, but the best place for film memorabilia
Savannah is Leopold’s Ice Cream parlour, owned by Stratton Leopold who produced cinematic hits including Mission: Impossible III. leopoldsicecream.com
Old river warehouses turned into restaurants and bars in the late 1960s kick-started the preservation of Savannah’s previously run-down historic district, but you can get an idea of the city before its revival at mansion-turned-art museum Telfair Academy. telfair.org, $20
Cemeteries and ghosts are a big deal in Savannah. You can take after-dark trolley buses, join walking guides and we even spotted an old Addams Family-style hearse doing haunted house tours.
We joined Ghost Talk Ghost Walk’s guide Pam for a spooky stroll. ghosttalkghostwalk.com/tours, $10
City Market, once a slave trading site, is now a focus for outdoor music, bars, restaurants and the only Prohibition museum in the USA, which tells how the temperance movement and subsequent illicit alcohol trade produced gangsters such as Al Capone.
It was on Tybee Island that we joined Captain Derek’s Dolphin Adventure Tour – an hour-anda-half of genuine joy for just $15 each – and we also watched as lifeguards did press-ups on Tybee’s South Beach, where scenes for the last Baywatch movie were filmed. tybeedolphinadventure.com
We cooled off at The Original Crab Shack – its amazing $101.99 shellfish platter of crab legs, prawns, langoustine and mussels will feed a hungry family of four with ease. thecrabshack.com
Tybee is Savannah’s nearest beach resort but for a less commercial island experience we stayed at Jekyll Island, now a state park dedicated to the conservation of its natural environment and wildlife. These include sea turtles that lay eggs on its sandy beaches and the diamondback terrapins that live in the marshland where alligators also lurk. Not that you’re likely to see an alligator unless you go to the observation deck at Horton Pond. We also saw turtles at Georgia Sea Turtle Center. gstc.jekyllisland.com, $10
Jekyll became a winter sun holiday island in the late 1800s when America’s Gilded Age millionin
We spotted an Addams Family-style hearse on a haunted house tour
aires stayed at Jekyll Island Club then built holiday homes around it. With no cars on the island, they used electric roadsters, like beach buggies, to get around and we got a taste of that lifestyle at Mosaic, a new $3.1m museum. jekyllisland.com/history/museum, $9
In the 1940s, the state of Georgia bought Jekyll and made it a holiday island for all, although it wasn’t until 1950 that black people were allowed to use one of the beaches. But back in Atlanta, where Dr Martin Luther King was born, you can see the distance Georgia has travelled in the intervening years.
It’s now one of the most liberal cities in America and a visit to its National Center for Civil and Human Rights is yet another of Georgia’s best-evers. civilandhumanrights.org, $19.99