Charleston, South
Carolina:
When I think of the deep south, I think of sweet iced tea, grits, southern comfort food,
beautiful trees with hanging Spanish moss, a slower way of life, charming towns
and friendly people. Speaking of
friendly people, we had a wonderful Airbnb host that gave us several terrific
ideas! She suggested that we visit the
Angel Oak, which was an unexpected gem!
Our host also suggested going to the Festival of Lights in
James Island County Park. This really
put us into the Christmas spirit. Since
Christmas is here, I thought I would share a few of the pictures we
took.
Plantations also come to my mind when I think of the South,
so we took the requisite plantation tour.
The Magnolia Plantation and Gardens was founded by the Drayton family in
1676 and is still owned by the family.
Our journey has taken us to many Civil War historical sites
in the north so we especially wanted to visit Ft. Sumter, where the
Civil War began. This tour began with a
boat ride to the island where Ft. Sumter is.
This gave us the opportunity to view Charleston from the water. We had two excellent tours at the Fort which
gave us pause to consider the impact that this war had on our country.
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| Ft. Sumter's Battle Flag |
Savannah, Georgia:
We fell in love with Savannah! I would like to give a shout-out of thanks to
Katie and Sean for their terrific suggestions!
We lunched at two great places per their suggestions: the Starland Café
and the Gryphon Tea Room, a Victorian library-style tea room. The staff were at both restaurants were very
friendly and the food was outstanding!
Since cemeteries seem to be one of our sub-themes of this
trip, Katie suggested that we visit the Bonaventure Cemetery. We took the Bonaventure
Cemetery Walking Dash Tour. Our tour guide picked us up at our hotel in a
comfortable van and drove us to the cemetery.
We especially enjoyed this tour as our guide focused on facts when explaining
about the tombs and history of the cemetery while sharing stories of people
buried there. Of course, there was
discussion about the book Midnight in the
Garden of Good and Evil. The cover
of that book features a tomb sculpture of the Bird Girl which is no longer
there. (That’s ok, we get to see it
later!)
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| Mercer Family |
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| Songwriter Johnny Mercer |
We also took a Historic District walking tour which gave us
the opportunity to see several of the beautiful squares and learn more about
the history of Savannah.
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| Fountain at Forsyth Park |
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General Sherman's Headquarters
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| Mercer House |
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| Fall in the South! |
The Telfair Museums is comprised of
three different museums: the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters, the Jepson
Center and the Telfair Academy. The
ticket includes one visit to each of the three sites and is valid for a
week. What a deal! We began with the Owen-Thomas House which
provided a guided tour. The house
includes American and European objects dating from 1750-1830. The property also includes intact slave
quarters that depict the lives of urban slaves.
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| Slave Quarters |
The Jepson Center is a modern museum designed by Moshe
Safdie. I was especially impressed with
their interactive ArtZeum section. We
had the opportunity to use technology to create art!
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| Cool Lobby! |
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“Stand in Front of the Screen To See Yourself As a Cubist Painting”
Cubist Mirror, Artist: Gene
Kogan
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And guess where the iconic Bird Girl statue is now! (Sculptor, Sylvia Shaw Judson)
The Telfair Academy was once the Telfair Mansion which now
houses 19th and 20th century American and European art,
plus three 19th century period rooms.
I hope that all of you have a wonderful and blessed Christmas and holiday season!
