Florida Road Trip #4: Amelia Island to Savannah

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We woke up fairly early by our standards and since breakfast was included within the price of our room, we headed over to the breakfast room to see what was on offer. This place had a really good selection of stuff. There was a buffet and we got to order some stuff that was cooked to your liking. Of course, I had to have biscuits and sausage gravy with my breakfast. I am gonna miss this so much, when my trip is over. After breakfast, we headed own to the beach in front of our hotel. The beach was gorgeous, long as far as the eye could see with beautiful white sand. Our hotel even had its own section with some sun loungers. However, we didn't have time to sit and relax on the beach unfortunately. We took a bit of a walk along the beach enjoying the scenery and dipping our toes in the ocean.

The main sightseeing destination that we had chosen for our time in Amelia Island was the Fort Clinch National Park. This place wasn't too far from where we were staying, so it was a quick. I enjoyed the drive through the state park as it nicely shaded by lots of trees. It seemed like there was a lot to do in the state park and there were several campgrounds. Since we didn't have all the time in the world, we headed to the actual Fort Clinch to take a look around. The fort is located on the northernmost point of Amelia Island. We had a look around the museum first, which told us a bit about the fort and the surrounding area. The site was first fortified by the Spanish in the 1700s, when they had colonies in Florida. When the Second Seminole War ended the United States constructed a fort in 1846. They named it Fort Clinch after General Duncan Lamont Clinch, who had an important military career. It passed back and forth between Confederate and Union forces. Nowadays,the fort has been preserved so that we can see what it was like back in the time of the Civil War. I really enjoyed walking around the fort. There was a lot to see. The rooms in the main building and the surrounding buildings showed what life was like back then. It was really interesting, I love getting glimpses of the past like this. We also took a walk along the walls of the fort. The coastal views were great. It was fun to wander in and out of the walls. I loved the big cannons perched on the top to defend the fort against attacks.

We headed to the downtown area to grab some lunch. We decided to take a look around some of the shops first. It was nice to browse, but we weren't really in the mood for buying anything. There were some cool sculptures on the street. We saw the old railway line, which was part of Florida's first Atlantic to Gulf Railroad. On 8th January 1853 the Florida Railroad Company came into fruition with David L. Yulee as president. Federal and state land grants were given to the line and despite having early financial difficulties, construction of the line began in Fernandina, where the main office was located in 1856. The last piece of track to Cedar Key was laid in 1861, giving Florida its first cross-state railroad. Then we went to find the lunch place we had found online. We went to Timoti's Seafood Shack. While the place does try to look like a shack on the outside, it is nice inside. We ordered the Lobster Rolls as we had read somewhere that we should try this dish in this area and hadn't yet. They were pretty good. After lunch we bid Amelia Island and Florida goodbye.

The drive to Savannah didn't take too long, only a few hours. I liked how we planned the trip so that there were no long days of only driving for hours on end. We got to spend a lot of time exploring the cities we stayed in, rather than just driving through and/or resting up for the night. We were in a bit of shock when we turned up to our AirBnB, it looked amazing, we couldn't believe our luck. It was a gorgeous house and there were rocking chairs on the porch. We had looked through so many properties when we were booking our trip, we couldn't remember what we had booked. Needless to say, we had gone to the wrong house. The bloke who answered the door was very nice about it, apparently it happens a lot. So we drove around the corner to the next, smaller street over and were greeted by a cute cottage that was much more in keeping with our budget.

After settling in, we set off to explore Savannah for a couple of hours and get our bearings. The city is planned around a number of squares and parks. We were staying a couple of blocks away from Forsyth Park, so we headed there first to take a look around. The park was really nice. I enjoyed walking around it, looking at the statues and fountains. The park was the idea of William Brown Hodgson in the 1840s, when he had set aside ten acres of land create Savannah's first recreational park. The park was named after John Forsyth, the former governor of Georgia. The original landscape design was created by William Bischoff. The early 1850s saw many improvements made to the original park and in 1854the fountain and radiating walkways were added. The twenty-one acre Park Extension was added in 1867, and had originally been a military parade ground. The grounds were used for World War I training and dummy forts had been built in the park in 1909.

There were also some very grand looking houses lining the streets. We headed further into the main downtown area, passing the building that had been the first headquarters of the Girl Scouts Movement in the United States. I really enjoyed wandering the streets. Once again the vibe had totally changed. There was still a relaxed air about the place, like in Florida, but there was also a bot more hustle. It was nice to be in a city again. It was also the weekend, so that is one reason to account for more people out and about. It also happened to be dinner time when we were downtown, so we headed to one of my friend's favourite fast food places, as it was near by. I got to try another American fast food place, Five Guys. I ordered a double bacon cheese burger and a milkshake. I got my burger loaded with everything, it would be messy, but it would be worth it. We also got a massive portion of chips (fries) to share between us. I really enjoyed my meal, the chips were great, really tasty. The burger was excellent, it didn't taste like your usual mass produced burger, absolutely delicious. The peanut butter milkshake was crackin' too. Although the food was top notch, some of the clientele left you in no doubt that you were still in a fast foo emporium. After dinner, we wandered back to our AirBnB taking in some more of the night sights of Savannah. We walked around some more of the streets downtown before heading back via some more of the gorgeous squares. We passed the grave of Tomo Chi Chi, which was beautifully lit up. Back at our new home for the next few days, we flopped. It was nice knowing that we would be spending a few nights in one place after being on the move everyday.

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