Love Notes: Where to Find Romantic Savannah Adjectives?

SAVANNAH Georgia (May 20, 2013) – Where’s the love in Savannah?  That answer is easy:  Everywhere. The old southern city by the sea is picture perfect! 

Great timing, too for this inaugural Love Note from Romantic Inns of Savannah.

Savannah is named among the top 25 Trip Advisor’s Travelers’ Choice ® 2013 USA Destination Cities, coming in at #14.

Romantic Inn's member, Forsyth Park Inn's southern porch with rockers overlooks the breathtakingly beautiful Forsyth Park.

“Let Savannah Romance You!”™ is the Romantic Inns of Savannah tagline. It’s really an invitation to a romantic place – Savannah. What's not to love? Just make your first stop for ideas and lodging at one of our romantic bed and breakfasts!  

Romance is so personal.  So, we have simply chosen a few deliciously descriptive adjectives – the feeling words of love – that fit romantic Savannah so well.  It’s amazing how a teacup full of delightful words can shake loose fresh ideas -- romantic places and romantic things to do – to better enjoy a delightful getaway to Savannah.

Aching --

Have you been aching to lunch again at Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room or Wiley’s Championship BBQ? Or, aching (literally from your sports training) to take part in the running events, like Rock N Roll Marathon, November 9, 2013. The 2-person half marathon relay is NEW in 2013! Now, isn’t that a fresh romantic idea? Savannah is a flat city, making it a popular running spot to novice and avid athletes. 

Breathtaking -- 

Especially for travelers arriving from desert climates, the Savannah tree-scapes, sunset cruises, and wide open spaces of nearby beaches are breathtaking.  Experience a day of simple pleasures, salty breezes and relaxation on the Atlantic Ocean shore at Tybee Island – only 18 miles east.  Picturesque panoramic views are showstoppers from the top of Tybee Island Lighthouse.  An intimate, romantic dinner at Alligator Soul, or Sapphire Grill’s Late Night Cocktails – yes, the mint juleps and jet-set-style small plates -- are worth lingering, breathtaking moments!

From Green Palm Inn a daily gourmand breakfast. Varying from Continental to a light chef's breakfast to homemade pastries and tarts, breakfast at all Romantic Inns of Savannah is complimentary.

Convivial –

Begin with lodging at a Romantic Inns’ bed and breakfast for your first introduction to Savannah’s social, convivial life.  Innkeepers will point the way to choice places to meet more of the city’s friendly, jovial people.  Did you know that Savannah’s friendly people made #2 in Travel+Leisure magazine’s “America’s Favorite Cities 2012” poll? 

Decadent to Delicious –

Savannah’s cuisine is gaining a worldwide reputation.  TripAdvisor.com named Savannah #7 among the top 10 Food and Wine U.S. Destinations in the 2011 Travelers' Choice poll. Desserts from places like Lulu’s Chocolate Bar and choice European wines from Le Chai are worth the visit!  In quiet moments at Telfair Museums – Telfair Academy of Arts (The South’s oldest museum), Owens-Thomas House (an architectural wonder in North America), and the modern Jepson Center – you’ll see romanticized portraiture, historical murals, and big and small modern artistic snippets on life.  The SCAD Museum of Art magically blends Savannah’s ingenuity -- old and new -- in exhibits curated by Vogue magazine’s André Leon Talley to the quirkilty modern place for a bite -- TAD café: A tad of art, a tad of whimsy, a tad of everything. The new museum is housed in the restored 1853 freight depot of the Central of Georgia Railroad.

Engaging –

Southerners are known to be a chatty, storytelling bunch.  From her Savannah trip, Harriette Behringer wrote “Everyone has a story” in her article “Oh Savannah” published in Philadelphia City Paper.  The slow movement of horse drawn carriages, sightseeing shuttles, and walking tour guides perpetuate the lore.  From innuendo to specific pointers, it’s easy to glean recommendations for the ‘must do’, ‘must see’, ‘must try’ experiences, places, food and libations here.

A unique Savannah historic inn amenity, adored during summer in Savannah -- a swimming pool at McMillan Inn, a Romantic Inns member

Flowery –

Dancing through the summer breeze in Savannah are whiffs of sweet gardenias and southern jasmine. Tempt yourself and buy an Archipelago Savannah candle – a blend of gardenia and jasmine. In Savannah the fragrant candle is available at boutiques, including One Fish Two Fish near Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room on Jones Street.  You’ll spot beach morning glories in the dry sands at Tybee Island.  Palms and colorful oleanders dress the tidewater highways.

Check out the largest private garden in the National Historic Landmark District. It is located on the expansive grounds of a beautifully restored shipping magnate's mansion, now Ships of the Sea Museum on Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard.

Note: Free admission to Ships of the Sea for National Maritime Day, May 22 annually.  The date honors the launching of the S. S. Savannah, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Good-looking –

Yes, indeed!  Savannah’s women are beautiful -- like Sandra Bullock and Charlize Theron, of course. And, the gentlemen are as handsome as Ben Affleck, Will Smith, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Jude Law, Kevin Spacey, Dennis Quaid, and Matt Damon!  Fact or legend? Haven’t you seen the movies filmed in Savannah – “Forrest Gump”, “Something to Talk About”, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, “Forces of Nature”, “Baggar Vance” and “Glory”? 

Any time of day, truly, the head-turners move about the landscape.  And, it’s been that way here a long time. Check out the good-looking hero statues that dot the well-manicured landscapes -- in 22 garden squares, along the Bay Street strand, River Street, and Forsyth Park.  

For a chance to meet up with real-life Hollywood standouts, stop in for ice cream at Leopold’s Ice Cream. The handsome Stratton Leopold, executive producer in box-office mega movies like Mission Impossible III,  may very well be on premise at the family’s legendary ice cream shop. Stratton and his darling wife, Mary, reintroduced the homemade Leopold’s flavors, achieving ‘top 10 in the world’ status – and Savannah a place on Travel+Leisure’s #1 Ice Cream city -- in recent years. 

P.S. Romantic Inns’ beautifully restored historic house inns and boudoirs are good-looking, too!

A romantic breakfast, fit for kings or queens, at Zeigler House Inn, a Romantic Inns of Savannah member.

High-spirited –

The story goes that nightlife for the 20-somethings begins at 10:00 p.m. in Savannah.  Then, of course, there’s another version of high-spirited that points instead to those who imbibe – not needing a 5:00 p.m. cue.  The rumor that Savannah is a “to-go-cup” city is true.  

Newest in the tales of our high-spirited city is the Savannah Slow Ride – a 15-person pedal tour that is popular for bachelor and bachelorette parties, friends and family on vacation in Savannah, or destination weddings in America's most beautiful city. River Street and City Market entertainment, plus music and film festivals help to celebrate Savannah as a fun-loving, get-out-and-go vacation spot.   

Stay tuned!  Romantic Inns of Savannah will have more Love Notes, sharing adoring to unforgettable adjectives that introduce romantic Savannah travel tips.

Copyright © 2013 Romantic Inns of Savannah / Sandy Traub

Romantic Inns Point to Georgia’s Scottish Heritage Honored in Savannah Scottish Games -- May 11, 2013

SAVANNAH Georgia (March 8, 2013) -- Scottish lineage has seeped and soaked into the Georgia populace the way the Ogeechee River saturates the Low Country swamps and sloughs. 

Piper Dana Wells leading Scottish wedding processional to Lafayette Square in the National Landmark Historic District. Photo (c) James Byous.

When you visit Savannah watch for Scots – diaspora that is, maybe a few directly from Old Scotland.  A kilted Scot here, bagpipes playing there. Scottish families have been in Georgia since the colony’s beginning years and made up a large percentage of the population even at that time. 

The innkeepers of Romantic Inns of Savannah issue a special invitation to ‘stay romantic’ when arriving for the 2013 Savannah Scottish Games and Kirkin of the Tartan at Independent Presbyterian Church. Lodge in one of a dozen of the history-rich charming inns, all located in the National Landmark Historic District.

Even the founder of the state, James Edward Oglethorpe has plaited lines of Scottish ancestry.  His father, General Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe was English… “to the bone” one might say.  But, his mother, Eleanor Wall, was Irish.  Her family has been touted by Georgia historians throughout the state’s history as being “related by marriage” to the house of Argyle in Scotland.  Eleanor’s maternal grandfather, Lord LaRoche of Tipperary, was more than just associated by marriage. 

Kirkin of the Tartan at Independent Presbyterian Church. Photo (c) James Byous.

Today by a study on the website Ancestry.com one can connect the family of the titled heirs, Lords LaRoche along a weaving, genealogical line that zigs and zags across the Erin landscape and over the Irish Sea to Scotland.  There it winds through Western Scottish Highlands and down through the Ayrshire Lowland’s, through grandfathers and grandmothers of historic mark, members of the clans of Campbell, Kennedy, Carrick and Stewart.  It then reveals that Eleanor and her Georgia founding son, James Edward Oglethorpe are direct descendants of Scottish hero-king, Robert the Bruce. 

Bruce, you may remember, was immortalized by Scottish poet Robert Burns over a century ago.  But more recently he was highlighted in Mel Gibson’s movie, Braveheart, when Scottish actor Angus Macfadyen punctuated the warrior-king’s historic call, “You have bled with Wallace! Now bleed with me!”  That’s Robert I, the Bruce.  He’s purported to have enunciated those words…, or at least something similar. Many of his descendants, Oglethorpe’s distant cousins, can be found living in and around Savannah, Georgia today -- seeped, soaked, saturated.

In 1733 the year of Georgia’s founding Oglethorpe created a defensive position a few miles upriver from Savannah.  In 1736 Patrick MacKay, John Cuthbert and George Dunbar, all Scottish Highland officers, made their homes in the swath of wilderness that was then called Joseph’s Town.  The location became Mulberry Grove Plantation.  Many years later it was there that Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin and changed the face of the South. Those Lowland Scot gentry, wanting an occasion to commemorate and the libation thus associated, created the “Scotch Club.”  St.Andrew’s Day, 1735 was their first time to celebrate. It is still celebrated annually. Always with a wee dram.

A few miles south, other Highland Scots settled New Inverness, the coastal city that is now called Darien, Georgia. John Mohr McIntosh was their Clan Chief. His family included son, General Lachlan McIntosh, nephew and Cherokee Chief William McIntosh and nephew George Troup who became Governor of the State of Georgia.  Oglethorpe accompanied the Scots on their voyage from Inverness, Scotland and upon arriving donned a kilt when he stepped from the boat.



Scottish Games at Fort Jackson. Photo (c) James Byous.



Savannah has its own Scottish Games each May, always on the same weekend as Mother’s Day. 

Appropriate, one would suppose, since old Scottish lineage was passed equally from either the father or the mother’s ancestry. The games have changed locations over the years but now meet at the historic site of the Bethesda Academy (formerly known as Bethesda Home for Boys) a few miles outside of Savannah. The tree-lined green has ample room for caber tossing and rock chucking.

Scottish games were once a test for personal fitness and endurance, “for king and chief, for skill and strength,” it was said.  As did the Greeks in ancient times, the clans of Scotland gathered the best and strongest through competition.  The winning honor was to be selected as warrior protector of their region – so states tradition. 

Today, in Savannah and across North America, games are for fun, friends and family.  On Games Day everyone is Scottish.  If you’re in town this May 11, 2013, stop in and watch the big guys toss telephone poles.  Bring your mom.  She may want to chuck the Clachneart [“Stone of Strength”].

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Romantic Inns of Savannah wish to thank our guest blogger James Byous. A Savannah, Georgia resident, Jim holds a BA in Journalism and an MA in History. He is a photographer and writer who resides on the Internet at AATRPublishing.com and at JByousPhoto.com. Specializing in the history of his home city, he is currently working on a series of GPS history tours to bring Savannah history to life by taking history lovers to the exact Google Earth locations where history was made.