Independence Day and beyond

We celebrated July 4th by setting out on a series of walks round Savannah, taking in as many of the lovely little squares as we could. In the morning, we headed towards the river and walked along the shore line as far as we could before returning to our hotel to shower again - and, in my case, have a quick dip in the pool.

We found a nearby coffee shop for lunch and then headed in the opposite direction towards the largest patch of greenery that the city has - Forsyth Park. Then back to the hotel, shower again and then hang around for a while before heading out for the evening, when we headed towards the river again - albeit by a different route, taking in more of the squares. Geometrically, of course, some of them are oblong, some circular, oval etc. (That one was for the pedants out there). We reckon we did about 15 of them, but probably missed another 9 or 10 - all of them within a short walking distance.

By the time of our evening walk, I figured I might be well enough to face a beer again - and it was July 4th, so it would have been rude not to. We tried a couple of pubs - one brewpub, Moon River Brewing, and adjacent Churchill's, which had a nice rooftop bar outside.

We'd had enough beer by now and it was time to eat before the fireworks began at 9:30 pm. We tried a couple of place along River St but the waiting times were pretty long, so we ended up in the Hyatt, where we had a lovely meal and a fine rooftop view of the fireworks.

So, time for some photos then - here's a few that didn't appear on Facebook:

This is the square where Forrest Gump sat waiting for the bus

So that was Savannah - a very pretty city indeed. Just a pity I wasn't feeling too great when we were there, but it was now time to move on to our next destination - Hilton Head Island - just an hour's drive north east across the state line in to South Carolina. We arrived there about noon - way too early for our room to be ready, of course, but we parked our car and then walked out for a bite of lunch at Harbourside Burgers and Beer at the yacht marina, adjacent to the lighthouse.

It was hot and steamy so we bought ice creams and sat on the shore front under the shade of a tree before taking a short walk along the shore. There were shells everywhere - oysters, razor clams, mussels, scallops.

When we got back to our resort, our apartment was ready so we took in our luggage and then drove off to the grocery store to stock up for our 5 nights here. It's like a building site as they rush to repair the damage from the October hurricane before the next hurricane season. Thankfully, the workers knocked off at 6 pm and didn't start again this morning until 9 am, so we had a peaceful evening on our balcony looking out towards the ocean, albeit through some trees.

The staff tried to make light of the building work with a gift for us:

Jo bemoans the quantity left in the bottle: