Savannah

Last night, our dinnner at The Kingfisher was very good. The ambience was sort of lacking, but our meals were good. After dinner we took in "The Breakup," which proved once again that Vince Vaughn is a tall, funny dude.

Today we ventured down to Savannah to take in the old homes and historic sites. The trip started off on shaky ground though. Upon arriving in Savannah, we immediately drove to the Visitor's Center. Upon arrival, I was dismayed to find that the parking lot at the visitor's center was a pay lot. I've driven down here to dump money into your city, and you expect me to pay while I determine how I'm going to spend that money? No thanks.

So we headed into the historic district to look for a parking place for the afternoon. Savannah has divided their 10 public parking spaces into various subcategories like "30 minute meter" or "3 hour meter" or "5 hour meter" and within each of these subcategories, there are other categories involving how you pay the meter -- coin or via an off-site parking validator. Logically, of course, the longer the time allowed on the meter, the more likely it requires actually coinage (i.e. you don't need change for the 30 minute meter, but you need 50 quarters for the 3 hour ones...unbelieveable). None of this matters though, as there wasn't a parking space to be found. So we drove around Savannah's crazy little squares for an hour looking for a parking spot. We then found a public parking garage, but the ticket machine wouldn't dispense anything, and there was no attendant. But there multiple signs saying that it was a permit-only garage, and you'd be towed for disobeying this rule. Not wanting my car towed, we kept looking. I will admit that I was becoming angrier by the minute. I couldn't get around why a city so desparately needing tourists would make it so freaking difficult to visit?

In the end, after some, er, guidance from Erin, we headed back for the damn visitor's center (which, as it turns out, gives you the first hour of parking free.) We went inside and selected a trolley tour of the city. Parking at the visitor's center is only a dollar per hour after the first hour, so the city should really put up a giant sign that says, "Don't bother driving into the city. Just dump your car here for the day." That would have saved me some blood pressure medication. The trolley tour we took was actually very fun and very informative. Savannah turned out to be a beautiful place with some amazing homes and architecture. After the tour, we lunched at Belford's, which turned out to be the best meal of the trip so far. Then we got some homemade candy and ice cream and headed back to the car.

"Park your car here and save your marriage and sanity. There are only 10 spaces in the historic district, and you'll have to kill three horse-drawn carriage drivers and a host of small children to get them."

Bret