Destination: Savannah!

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” 

~Mark Twain

This is one of my favorite life’s quotes! So many times when Joel and I are debating about whether to take that trip, try that new (slightly) scary thing, or jump into a new adventure, this usually comes up in our conversation.

We never regret our adventures. There’s always work to do, always a huge pile demanding our attention, always reason why we’d be better off saving some money, staying home, and getting work done. But these adventures, these memories, are priceless treasures that last so forever. They’re memories.

And you know how we feel about creating memories. :)

So last week, we found ourselves with a few days off over the holiday weekend. We packed our bags and took off to one the iconic southern cities that’s been on our bucket list for as long as I can remember.

Hello, Savannah!

We heard it was beautiful, and we heard that the food was amazing. What other reasons do we need?? Let me tell you, Savannah was even better than we imagined. Beautiful Spanish moss hanging from majestic live oak trees, delicious food, southern culture, history… this place has it all.

We couldn’t get over how gorgeous this city is! The historic district has 22 squares – these beautiful, grassy, tree-filled spots with statues, fountains, or benches. The most famous one is Chippewa Square, where they filmed Forrest Gump’s famous box of chocolates scene. If you’re curious about Savannah’s historic squares, you can check out some more information here.

We stumbled across a cupcakery in our wanderings. It turned out to be one that’s been featured in several southern magazines for their Mabel cupcake. We ordered that one, of course.

And it was pretty tasty.

One of our favorite discoveries of the trip was Savannah Bee Company. They had an entire row of honey set up for visitors to taste a dozen or so of their flavors. They give you these cute little paper spoon things and send you on down the line. I had no idea that honey was so diverse or could taste so amazing. If you’re ever in Savannah and like honey even a little bit, make sure this is on your agenda!

We got to try the honeycomb. It was interesting and waxy!

Full of sugar and ready for a walk, we headed down to the riverfront.

Savannah Candy Kitchen. How could we not go in?

They were true to their word about all the samples. This guy shot a couple extra taffy samples in our direction!

We also got to try some warm, perfectly fresh praline samples. Yum!

We did remember to take a selfie!

We just might have gone to Savannah because we heard they had amazing food. Our first night of shrimp and grits and a Carolina burger at The Public did not disappoint! Soooo good.

We started out our next morning by discovering a fantastic coffee shop called Collins Quarter. Lavender must be a popular flavor there because so many coffee shops featured it. We tried the spiced lavender mocha, and it was ah-mazing.

I don’t think you could ever get tired of exploring this city. Everywhere you go, it is absolutely gorgeous.

A hot morning called for a cold version of a J&A Coffee Adventure! Gallery Espresso had this really cool Thai coffee drink that had sweetened condensed milk.

Refreshed and ready to go, we went off in search of what has been called the most beautiful street in North America. It was so gorgeous, I think we walked up and down it at least twice. This Spanish Moss that hangs off of all these live oaks makes the whole city feel like a romantic fairytale.

Joel got a kick out of the fact that Spanish Moss is neither Spanish nor moss. It’s an herb from the pineapple family. Who knew? But whatever they call it, it’s beautiful.

One of our favorite celebrity chefs (Aarón Sanchez) featured The Olde Pink House‘s fried green tomato BLT salad on the Food Network show The Best Thing I Ever Ate. We had to try it out, of course! It was super delicious!

Enter our BLT salad and some of the best sweet potato fries we’ve ever had.

Lobster rolls, homemade cheese straws, and she crab soup rounded out an amazing J&A foodie experience.

The Olde Pink House is a mansion turned into a restaurant. The ambiance was really neat, even at lunch.

We finished off our meal with another can’t-miss food spot of Savannah – Leopold’s ice cream! Yes, we waited in that line. Yes, it was about 95 degrees outside.

And yes, it was so worth it. I didn’t really think any one particular ice cream could really be that much better than the rest, but this stuff was good. So good that we went back and waited in line again the next day for one more cone before we headed home.

The son of the original owners left for awhile to become a Hollywood producer (of things like Mission Impossible:3 and The Sum of All Fears). The store is filled with some really cool film memorabilia and autographs of celebrities that have come through. We missed Adam Sandler by a couple of hours.

We decided to get off our feet for a little bit and took an open air trolley tour around the city to learn more about the history of Savannah. Super interesting and another one of our favorite parts!

Then came that southern summer rain shower. It put a damper on the rest of our exploring, so we chilled for awhile (and by “chilled”, I really mean that we dodged from building to building and dashed across flooded parking lots to get back to our car).

Once it finally dried out, we went searching for something amazing for supper. It was 4th of July and we made an important discovery. A lot of the restaurants were closed for the holiday! We finally found an authentic little British pub that was serving supper. It was really cute and was truly authentic. It just felt maybe a little….unpatriotic. :)

One last walk around this beautiful city. We spent Sunday morning worshipping at a huge, breathtakingly beautiful historic church in the middle of the city. Sunday evening we discovered this amazing little church called Kirk O’ The Isles. We loved it!

Someday we’ll be back! Savannah brides, we love your city! We would totally spoil you rotten to be able to shoot a wedding here! *wink, wink!*

“I do not want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”

~Diane Ackerman

*hugs*

Amber