Frommer's EasyGuide to Charleston, Savannah and St. Augustine by Stephen Keeling

Frommer's EasyGuide to Charleston, Savannah and St. Augustine by Stephen Keeling

Author:Stephen Keeling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FrommerMedia
Published: 2015-08-14T16:00:00+00:00


Exploring Savannah

Savannah is easy to explore on foot, though the free buses are handy when the heat picks up. A good place to start is River Street overlooking the Savannah River, lined with bars and restaurants, and a great place to stroll or take a boat ride. A short walk east will take you to Morrell Park and the Waving Girl statue, a tribute to Florence Margaret Martus, who once waved to all the vessels going in and out of the harbor. Also here is the small Olympic Flame Cauldron, which was lit during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics (Savannah was the sailing venue). South of the river lies Savannah’s Historic District. Though the area is peppered with intriguing sights—many of them old mansions—the soul of the city is its great network of squares (see p. 136), really subtropical parks shaded by canopies of live oaks, dogwoods, and blooming magnolias. Johnson Square is the oldest and largest, though Reynolds Square makes an equally attractive starting point of any tour, marked by the statue of John Wesley.

   The Gateway to Historic Savannah

On a bluff above the Savannah River, Factors Walk and Factors Row are arrays of redbrick structures named for the men who graded cotton in these buildings in the heyday of the 19th-century King Cotton economy. They were called “Factors.” The structures themselves were built by skilled architects, who had to contend with a bluff rising sharply from the river. On this bluff, they designed a series of multi-tiered buildings that were made from ballast stone and brick, hauled across the Atlantic.

Rice and cotton were the main crops held in the warehouses along Factors Walk, both flourishing industries at the time. During Savannah’s peak as a seaport, ships from all over the world docked adjacent to the row of warehouses so their exports could be directly loaded into their holds.

The rows of warehouses were made accessible by a network of iron bridgeways over cobblestone ramps. Today this section, lying between Bull and East Broad streets, is filled with shops and restaurants. Ramps lead from the Bay Street level down the bluff to restaurant-lined River Street, which you can explore after checking out Factors Row and Factors Walk.



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