Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope you all had a fun and safe weekend, and you’re ready to conquer this new week. I took a pretty long hiatus from the blog as so many changes were going on in my life, and I needed to be able to keep up. Hopefully I’ll be back more consistently from now on 🙂 These next few weeks I’m going to reminisce on some of my past travels I haven’t written about yet. One of my most recent trips was a weekend gateway to Savannah, Georgia!
I started with working with Georgia Farmers Market Association this past summer, and I have learned so much about food, farmers, farmers markets, and so much more! One of my primary responsibilities was going to various farmers markets throughout Georgia to support and promote the hard work they are doing. The very last market of the summer that I went to was the Forsyth Farmers Market, down in Savannah, Georgia. The GFMA team decided to make a weekend trip out of our visit, and it was pretty exciting! Unfortunately, a few of the team couldn’t make it due to being ill or out of town, but two of us were able to go, and our moms were able to join us!
In hindsight, I should have just sucked it up and left right after my class Thursday evening, but hindsight is always 20/20. My mom and I ended up heading down to Savannah Friday morning. It was a pretty straightforward drive with minimal traffic, so we made great time. We turned the music up, and enjoyed the ride all the way down to the most haunted city in Georgia.
When we arrived, we met up with my friend and her mom. After getting all our bags into our place, and settling in a little bit, we decided to walk over to River Street. We were literally right across the street. It was super convenient! We hadn’t really gotten our bearings together yet, so we randomly chose a restaurant for an early dinner. Although the view was great for people watching and appreciating the river scenery, we were not terribly impressed with the food [but the presentation gets an A].
After eating, we explored the various shops River Street has to offer and then we went to Kroger to grab a few groceries before settling in the night. We were pretty tired from our drives in that morning, and we knew we had an early morning ahead us.
saturday
Saturday morning started with us heading to the Forsyth Farmers Market. Oh. My. Goodness. If you are ever in the Savannah area on a Saturday, this is a must. Not only do they have fresh produce, meats, juices, flowers, and pasteries, but the market also doubles SNAP/EBT sales. That means if those using their SNAP/EBT card swipe for $10, then they will receive $20 worth of tokens to spend throughout the market. This initiative is to help make fresh food accessible and affordable for all. How amazing is that? And for those of you who are dog lovers, it’s like puppy heaven. It took everything I had to not try and pet every single dog that walked by me. Everyone is so friendly and it was so awesome to see people bringing their reusable bags to the market – and it’s a great place to get recommendations from the locals. If all that hasn’t convinced you to visit, maybe knowing some of the vendors offer free samples may tip the scale 🙂
After the market, we headed over to Bull Street Taco, where they source some of their ingredients from the Farmers Market. How cool is that? One of those ingredients are the tortillas, which come from Mitla Tortilleria in Charleston, South Carolina. Honestly, I had never really given much thought to tortillas before – they all taste the same, right? Wrong. These tortillas were simply amazing! Seriously, give them a try! We all decided to go with the special of the day which was a pork belly chimichanga. [Fair warning: this dish was a bit on the spicy side]. I had never had pork belly before, but I’m glad I decided to get this dish despite the heat it brought to my mouth.
When we were done eating, we headed back to our place and then walked over to the City Market. There are so many different shops and eateries throughout the Market, and so many people walking though having a grand time. We made it a point to find the Haitian Monument [as we are a Haitian family]. This monument went into detail about how the Haitians helped fight in the Civil War. Honestly, I think it’s an aspect of the Civil War that most people don’t know about – and I certainly didn’t learn about it in school.
We walked back to our place via a different route and stumbled into the line of Leopold’s Ice Cream. My mother is sort of an ice cream fanatic, and we kept seeing raving reviews of this place online, so we had to stop! The line was well out the door, and headed down the street. It was so long that they started passing menus back through the line and an employee came out with a pitcher of water and cups for us to stay hydrated. Haha…but the wait was worth it. I got strawberry and my mom got pistachio and rum raisin.
As evening was starting to fall, we met back up with my friend and her mom. We booked a ghost tour for the night, because if you come to Savannah, Georgia – that’s a must. We found a great deal through GroupOn for a tour through Full Moon Tours, for a 1/2 Haunted, 1/2 History Tour, which was also a pub crawl. Honestly, I feel like there are so many different tour options, there’s bound to be something for everyone! We had a lot of fun on this tour as we walked the streets of Savannah, learning the history of the city as well as listening to ghost stories.
By the time the tour was over, we were pretty exhausted from a full day. We walked back to our place to rest, because we knew we’d be leaving the following morning.
sunday
Ahhh. Sunday morning means Sunday brunch – even when you’re headed back home. We woke up and packed our cars up before walking over to River Street. We made a beeline to Huey’s On the River, and talk about perfect timing. Right after we were seated, the line grew exponentially long. The night before I was reading reviews and read that someone waited 45 minutes for a table. Thankfully, we didn’t have to.
Their brunch menu has so many different options, I wanted to try everything! Ultimately, I settled for the Crab Cake Benedict and my mom ordered the Name Your Own Omelette with tomatoes, onions, and spinach. We also got an order of beignets as I had never had them before – and oh my goodness, they were delicious! Both my and my mom’s dishes were so filling that we actually had to get to go boxes and bring them back home with us. We were super happy with our decision to end our Savannah trip at Huey’s.
summary
I’m so thankful for my friends and the blogging community! Thanks to them, I received a list full of recommendations and suggestions on things to do in Savannah. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to check off everything on the list, but we did get a good chunk done. Have you been to Savannah before? Have you done anything on this list? What other recommendations do you have for those headed to the city soon? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Let us know by leaving a comment 🙂