Southern sun, BBQ and country music – A tour of the deep south – Savannah

For background on this road trip please see the Atlanta blog entry.

Savannah and Tybee Island – “Hey y’all”

When driving in to Savannah and Tybee Island you feel as though you have arrived in the ‘real’ deep south. After all, this is the city of Forrest Gump (although they have removed the famous bench from the city centre!) and it’s safe to say that Tom Hanks did not exaggerate the accent one iota whilst filming. “Hey y’all” is heard everywhere you turn and the famous deep south hospitality nowhere more pronounced. Most restaurants advertise “ol’ fashioned southern cooking” and “grits” (tastier then they sound) and the pace of life feels a lot slower than other major cities in the southern states.

Matt and I spent one night on Tybee Island, an old fashioned coastal tourist town, and two in Savannah. Our evening and day in Tybee Island mostly consisted of drinking beer in Rock House and Tybee Time (check out both websites and see if you can guess which one was cooler), playing pool and relaxing on the beach. Any other spare time was spent fielding questions such as, “Dy’all have Mexican food in London?” and then watching people crease up with laughter at our replies in our English and Welsh tones. Although it must be said that our accents did get a compliment or two. Instagram was also discovered during our time there and this will explain the following arty photos.

Savannah is a gorgeous city. We were told time and time again that the city had avoided significant damage in the Civil War which the locals were, understandably, very proud of and the city certainly has a historic feel. The bus tour is superb, our was guide hilarious and he did a great job of pointing out many of the 22 public squares of Savannah.

Our hostel, The Savannah Pensionne, was perfect. It was cheap and despite warnings from the owner about cockcroaches, clean. On our first night we went out for a meal with Larry, who was making his way up to east coast from Florida to New York for work and also staying in the hostel. Larry was a an Italian New Yorker but moved to Florida, to live in a converted school bus no less, after getting divorced several years back. He lived up to the stereotype of an Italian New Yorker and talked non-stop throughout dinner, regaling Matt and I with plenty of anecdotes. At one point he spent ten minutes listing different types of fish that he liked, barely pausing for breath. Another time he was moaning that his morning mug “cwaffee” had recently gone up to two bucks. Great guy though and he translated our English accents to the waitress, who didn’t understand a word either Matt or I said.

The rest of the evening went by in a blur of beer, vodka, alcoholic slush puppies and arriving back to the hostel at dawn. Winning!

Both Tybee Island and Savannah were brilliant and I hope you enjoyed the read. More deep south blogging coming soon.