Savannah

Over the holidays I was fortunate to be able to embark on another adventure, this time to Savannah, Georgia. My mom lives in North Carolina so I flew there for Christmas then we went on a little road trip. I have pretty good radar for cool small places and I was particularly excited to visit Savannah. First because I know SCAD is there (Savannah College of Art & Design) and also, have noticed that Savannah seems to be the darling city of a lot of prominent design bloggers. I used the city guides from Design Sponge and SFgirlbybay as my compass for discovering the cool and noteworthy and, all in all, was pretty satisfied with all we did and saw.

First, Savannah is a gorgeous place - though I do get the sense that to bask in its complete charm, it should be ridiculously hot and humid. I can just imagine walking under the Spanish moss and sipping on a mint julep on a hot day. Unfortunately, when we were there it was cool and rainy, though still a hell of a lot nicer than Toronto, where it was snowing.

I'm not exactly proud of this but usually, whenever I go to a new place, top of my agenda is scouting out all of the good vintage clothing stores. I am a little disappointed to report that Savannah did not exactly deliver in this category. However, there were some exceptional design stores. Notably, the SCAD gift shop, full of handmade wares of the design students and, the big glorious, 2 story shop known as Paris Brocante, full of curios, vintage finds and such.

The second thing I most enjoy doing is to simply wander around and snap photos. I have a very nice DSLR camera but, rather embarrassingly of late, I have been mostly just taking photos with my phone. Like most, I can't resist the filters of Instagram, though it is one of my goals this year to get back to, ahem, serious photography.

So we spent the greater portion of the trip just wandering the very beautiful streets of Savannah, gazing at the hanging moss and the stunning architecture. At every intersection it seems there is a large park with trees and historical statues and such. It was nice to just meander.

Some highlights of the trip: 1) having proper afternoon tea at The Gryphon Tea Room. This is a spectacular place run by the students of SCAD. Very traditional British aesthetic with these amazing ethnic details, like sofas covered in kilim textiles and lush velvet chairs. 2.) We did the tourist bus thing which I actually didn't mind and on the last night, most fun, a late night horse drawn carriage tour of all the haunted houses of Savannah. How cool is that! AND, the best, in Savannah, you can get takeout alcoholic beverages. Hot mulled wine, a full moon and scary stories, what was a perfect end to the trip.