At 9:30 AM we were picked up by a tour trolley and driven to Savannah for a city tour.
Savannah seemed less than expected, not quite the mood of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which perhaps unfairly established expectations. Not helped by 90 minutes bumping up and down on bench seats in a fake trolley. There are at least three trolley tour companies and their vehicles are everywhere.
On the ground, it is a more interesting city. The architecture is varied and well protected by ordinance. The neighborhoods all center on small squares. But there is a mythology about this town, too much emphasis on ghosts haunting old buildings where terrible things happened. There is even a riverfront statue of a girl waving at passing ships, as she promised her sailor boyfriend she would do until he returned; he didn’t, and she waved for 42 years before dying of a broken heart. They claim locally that this is true, and if it is, that is all the more pathetic.
Ah, but the food. We ate at Paula Deen’s restaurant, The Lady & Sons. She is on the Food Channel. The menu items looked good but fearing I might get something I didn’t like, I went for the $13 buffet. Marcia also chose the buffet; she had ordered off the menu last time, on the Ladies Tour.
The cheese biscuits were great, the fried chicken very good (as it is nearly everywhere), the mashed potatoes excellent, the lima beans and black-eyed peas were very good, as was the mac-n-cheese. Marcia reports the collard greens were the best she has had, but still unpleasantly bitter.
This was again a fairly typical low-country, or perhaps more broadly, southern food offering.
This could have been a tourist trap but we were seated at the promised time, politely served, and never rushed.
Before lunch we spent time prowling around galleries of the Savannah College of Art and Design. Established in 1978, SCAD already has buildings all over Savannah and in other cities as well. After lunch we toured the Jepson Center for the Arts.
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