around a series of squares. Each of these squares provided a park on every block. We had always heard how lovely this city is, but we did not understand that it had fallen into virtual ruin by the 1950's. A restoration effort, mostly privately run, began. Old homes were bought up at prices in the $20,000 range and with slow, costly, and tedious effort, restored. Today homes in the "historic" district sell in the millions. We docked right downtown along the river on lower River Street. We boarded one of the many tour buses that showcase the city and using our "on and off" stickers, made the tour bus our "taxi" for the next two days.
We toured many of the old homes and churches, rode past Paula Dean's restaurant, visited museums, lunched on Market Square, spent a delightful evening listening to music in an Irish Pub on River Street and heard repeated historic interpretation from our many tour guides on the bus.
Every guide begins describing the original charter granted James Oglethorpe by the English King. Oglethorpe had four rules when establishing his colony. There were to be no "hard" spirits to drink, only Protestants (no Catholics or Jews allowed), no slavery, and no lawyers. He thought lawyers to argumentative! Needless to say, neither these rules nor Mr. Oglethorpe stuck around very long.
Every guide begins describing the original charter granted James Oglethorpe by the English King. Oglethorpe had four rules when establishing his colony. There were to be no "hard" spirits to drink, only Protestants (no Catholics or Jews allowed), no slavery, and no lawyers. He thought lawyers to argumentative! Needless to say, neither these rules nor Mr. Oglethorpe stuck around very long. We discovered that Savanah is a huge container port with 125 of these big babies arriving and leaving each week. Their size and the number of container they can hold are astounding. The city is our third largest port.
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