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Published: March 5th 2011
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les Chasseurs Voluntaires
black soldiers who came from Haiti in 1779 to support the french Once again, directly coming to you from the “funky” Thunderbird Inn directly across the road from the Hound in Savannah. And trying to shut this down early for an early start – 6.45am – at the Hound over the road after a coffee and a donut.
Given that I had barely managed any standard tourist attractions until now I had a late burst today. Just off the main shopping drag, Broughton St, had a very interesting chat in a gallery with a lecturer/tutor in photography about his film shots of Paris – we both agreed that line 4 to Porte d’Orleans was our metro line of choice in Paris. Then grabbed a quick sandwich from a Subway type place called Blimp’s (??) – then had a cup cake and a coffee at a bespoke cupcake place (there were no donuts left for my coffee this morning at the T-bird). Then found the first Telfair Museum – which was a gallery in an old period building. 1900’s paintings by unknown Americans were not of much interest and minor Europeans also unknown. But they did have an excellent exhibition by a youngish painter who had visited and painted a lot of vanishing
Owens-Thomas house
note white balcony from which Marquis de Lafayette addressed the crowd when he stayed there natural scenery in Georgia, N Florida and the Carolinas as they would have been seen by a famous naturalist in the 1790’s. A lot of the long pine forests etc have since been wiped out so this was a very interesting “conservation” thru art project in a realistic (but not photographic style) of painting.
The one ticket for $20 – which seemed hefty – also covered the Jepson Centre which is all modern art – and a crazy psychedelic art which had just opened today – and also a wonderful historical house called the Owen-Thomas House. The psychedelic art was touring from San Antonio as a lot of the recent works were from artists living in that area, while other paintings were from the early 1960’s when this was all starting off with op art etc. I told one of the attendants that he had better not spend too much of his shift looking at some of the more extreme works or he could have a permanent head-ache! – as this was Day 1 he agreed.
Then to the Owen-Thomas house which was built for a wealthy man by an English architect who had come over and did
this in the height of the Regency style c. 1815. Never seen actually curved doors/frames before. They were rich enough to import their ice from Canada (insulated with sawdust??) and as the fireplaces burnt coal had to bring that over from Liverpool as none mined in the US at that time. The docent (fancy Latin word for guide used here) was excellent on this 1 hour guided tour of the house, the last one of the day at 4.30pm. There are a number of historic homes you can tour here and they all cost c. $10 or so – a guy I chatted to said this was way better value than the other one he had been to.
Wandered down to the river to catch the late evening remains then went to “17hundred90” – which I had seen earlier. Both a lodging house and also a restaurant. Thought this very good value ($55 all up incl. 20% tip). The she crab stew/soup was very good value and taste for $4 (unlike that sham conch chowder in Key West!). The pecan crusted and fried local grouper was good – came with both a raspberry vinaigrette salad and also your choice
of 2 sides – for me steamed broccolini and parmesan risotto (latter a bit stodgy for my taste). And the dessert – unlike the perils of tiramisu (or Key Lime Pie) no one can really mess up a dessert with the words crème brulee in it (in this case a blood orange flavour) – and only $5! A very generous pour of Californian reisling – such that another glass would have been overkill – had me well sorted. Good honest value food and good service too – what more do you want?
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Huddo
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Smooth Savannah.
Hi Mike, Man they sure new how to build em homes in them days. Pretty interesting at the Jepson, 60's psychedelic art would be something. Not a lot more wanted than good value, and service to boot, not too hard is it! Beaut "Lil Toot" on the river, with backdrop. Love Huddo.