Tuesday, July 8, 2014

River Street & Savannah Sweets

When I ended my last post, we were still in downtown Savannah, headed towards River Street. Uniquely settled on a bluff with it's original cobblestone road, River Street turned out to be a great place to spend the evening. The views are accompanied by free trolley rides, cheap PBRs, and delicious cocktails. But one of the best parts about River Street is all the delicious sweets. 
                   
I have never actually had a Praline, but free fresh samples were abundant. Pecans covered in caramel? Yes please!

After wondering around River Street for a while, we stopped in at the Bohemian Hotel for drinks before dinner. While husband sampled some local microbrews, I enjoyed cocktails. 
But the real draw of the Bohemian, were the rooftop views. 

Monday, July 7, 2014

Downtown Savannah








During our first day in Savannah, we spent our time downtown. Savannah’s founder James Oglethorpe was a genius and mapped out the city into squares. This has allowed for expansion throughout the years, and for our sake it made the city extremely easy to navigate. So we parked the car and decided to explore on foot. 

My favorite part of the entire day was stopping in at the Paris Market. This shop was the perfect combination of modern and vintage. They sold everything from housewares to facial cream. They had quite the collection of antiques, including my favorite….teacups. I’m quite surprised that I managed to get out of there without going on a shopping spree.
Paris Market 

While I didn’t purchase anything in the store, I did stop in at their café where they were serving macaroons. Have I mentioned before that I love macaroons? So much so that they were parting favors at my wedding. I ordered a lemon macaroon and a salted caramel macaroon along with the White Wolf Tea. All of these lovelies were served to me on a vintage floral plate and in the most gorgeous yellow teacup and saucer. I love anything related to lemon, so the lemon macaroon was by far one of the best that I’ve ever tasted. This is not to say that the caramel macaroon wasn’t a show stopper too. The filling had chunks of caramel sauce throughout, making it really sweet. And hubby and I both agree, that the tea may have been the best we’ve ever tasted. If you are ever in Savannah, don’t skip this shop.
Paris Market 


Paris Market 


Paris Market 


We spent quite a bit of time in Paris Market, so after that it was time for lunch. As we (especially hubby) love beer, we headed to the Moon River Brewery for lunch. It wasn’t too humid out so we chose to eat in the beer garden and join some of the locals in watching the World Cup. 

Low Country Crab Melt & Sweet Potato Fries  


We ordered a flight of beer to maximize our microbrew sampling and there wasn’t one beer that we didn’t like. By far, my favorite was the Wild Wacky Whit. It was a wheat ale flavored with oranges and coriander. I could literally drink that all day. For lunch, we both had the special that day which was a crab melt. 





Once we started walking again, we were lured into the Savannah Bee Company shop for free honey tasting. There were about 15 different types of honey that you could sample as well as whole honeycombs. I didn’t like the honeycomb because of the texture, but hubby did so I’m glad that we tried it.


 


We also decided to sample mead. If you don’t know what mead is, it's basically any alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey so that can include beer and wine. Our favorite was the Ambrosia, which was a white wine with a honey undertone. We loved it so much that we bought a bottle to share with my inlaws and they loved it too.  






Of course I couldn’t escape Savannah without doing a little shopping. I find that buying a one of a kind item, especially jewelry in a local shop is the best kind of souvenir. So I picked up a bracelet at Villa Savannah. 









We spent the better part of the afternoon exploring more of the city, including stopping in at the infamous Leopald’s Ice Creamery. That place has a line wrapped around the building at all times of the day, but it’s definitely worth the wait. I loved the lemon custard while hubby enjoyed the jet-blueberry.







After all of this, the day was only partially over so we headed over to River Street for the rest of the evening (next post). I will share more on that tomorrow. 

Friday, July 4, 2014

Waterfalls

Happy Fourth of July! Hubby and I are on the road right now, on our way to spend the holiday with my parents. We just left my in-laws place so I thought I would share with you some of the time that we spent there. Yesterday, we all piled into the car and headed to Shenandoah National Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We decided to hike the Dark Hollow Falls Trail, which turned out to be 4.5 miles round trip. 



There was a good bit of thundering when we started out, but it wasn't really raining so we decided to push onward. It worked out perfectly for us because the overcast day allowed for a much cooler hike. The heavy rain held off until we were finishing up the trail. By that point, it was much welcomed because the last stretch was the steepest and the rain cooled us down after that workout. 



Thursday, July 3, 2014

Road Trip #2

I have more to share on Savannah, but today I wanted to talk about our second road trip this week. We arrived home from Georgia Tuesday night, only to take off again on Wednesday. Why leave so soon? Well because I wouldn't be fully taking advantage of this week off from dental school if I didn't spend time with my family. So husband and I embarked on a second road trip to visit both sets of parents. But first, we picked up the little guy. 

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Pineapples, Pearls, & Pink in Georgia

When traveling, Husband and I normally plan a nice dinner night out. While in Savannah, our destination of choice was The Olde Pink House Restaurant. It was the first mansion in Georgia and is one of the oldest standing buildings. It originally belonged to James Habersham Jr., whose family were some of Savannah's founding members. Habersham, financed a portion of the American Revolution and hosted several political meetings in this home, which included guests such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. With so much history, how could we not visit this iconic home? 

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Greetings from Savannah

Husband and I just returned home from an impromptu road trip to Savannah, Georgia. I only have two weeks off from dental school the entire summer, and this week is one of them so we took complete advantage of the time. Since visiting Atlanta a few years ago, Georgia has held a special place in my heart and I have been dying to get back there. Only this time, I wanted to visit Savannah. I was so excited for this trip, but when we initially arrived I was actually kind of miserable. Our drive was much longer than expected and there was a torrential downpour with the threat of continued rains for the next few days. Also, I quickly realized that our haphazard packing had caused us to forget several things. Amongst them, were my contacts meaning that I would need to wear/carry my glasses around all day (annoying). Don't worry though, this story does have a happy ending.