Savannah

 We went to 3 weddings in 2022, the first was back in June. Angie's cousin got married at a big estate in Savannah. Like the trip to Italy in 2019 we decided to make a vacation out of it.

Savannah is a great little city and we stayed in three different hotels, the contrast between the three was really interesting. The first was Avid. This is and IHG (think Holiday Inn) hotel and is marketed as "midscale" but I would consider to be somewhat downmarket from Holiday Inn express. We stayed because it was the closest to the wedding venue and I could get it free on points. Thank you to Avid, my employer, for years of having me stay at IHG properties.

Our second hotel was the McMillan Inn. It's a fairly large B&B on the edge of the historic district of Savannah. Nice place, good food, nice people, fun little pool.

Finally we stayed in the Marshall House. The most expensive of the 3 it's a grand old hotel near the river. The room was small but this one is all about location, it's a short walk from all the touristy stuff in Savannah. The breakfast was fantastic as was the wine hour in the afternoon. One day we played trivia, the next they had live music. The wine flowed freely and Wayne, the host, made us feel very welcome.

Yup, those are Segways. This was our third Segway tour, the others were Chicago and Nashville. If a city is walkable at all then a Segway is a great way to see a bunch of the city. Our guide was very knowledgable and we had a great time.

Savannah the city sits on the Savannah river. There is a bricked in walking path along the river ("River Walk", imaginative name) and it's pretty nice to just sit and watch a working river do it's thing. We saw a number of giant container ships going up and down river and even got to see dolphins.

Johnny Mercer was a Savannah native who wrote a bunch of songs you've probably heard, even if you didn't know who wrote them. He's buried in the Bonaventure cemetery which is worth the short drive. There are guided tours and, when you first get into the cemetery it's easy to see why people take them but aided by the Google machine we found a bunch of the touristy graves and even a bunch of interesting graves that aren't typical tourist spots.

Of course being in the south I wanted a low country boil. This was from a place just across the street from the Marshall house. It was very good and not expensive.

Angie got a po-boy. I can't remember what the protein was, probably shrimp. She was jealous of my meal...

One of my favorites from the trip was the Savannah history museum. This is the bench from the movie Forest Gump and while it looks like a real bench in pictures (and in the movie) in real life it's obviously fiberglass.

While wandering around the museum this young fellow approached us and asked if we'd be interested in hearing a talk about the siege of Savannah. We followed along and he talked for 30+ minutes with no notes and covered all aspects of the siege. The detail he provided was amazing including names and dates. Places, guns, famous people, the whole bit. We then followed him outside where he fired his musket 3 times.

As a black powder shooter I knew he was the real deal when I saw the black smudges on his hands. It was hot and muggy (normal for Savannah) and he managed to get the gun to go off 3 times with zero misfires.

I'll confess I travel largely for my stomach. On our last night in Savannah I convinced Angie to go to a British pub for a meat pie. We'd had a big lunch and ended up having just one pie between us but it was a good un.

The drinks were also fun, on the left was a rubarb drink I can't remember the name of, on the right was "Gandalf the Grey" which featured gin steeped with Earl Grey tea.

I don't have pictures but our last stop before leaving Savannah was "Mrs Wilkes Dining Room" which is a MUST if you're going to the city. We'd seen it after our Segway tour on Wednesday, but there were maybe 10 or 15 people in line and we'd decided to wait. BIG mistake. Doors open at 11am and by 10 there were probably 50 people in line, so many in fact that we missed the first seating. I knew we were cutting it close but persisted and I'm so glad we did.

Food is served family style, big plates of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, fried okra, buttered corn, rolls, turnips, squash and I can't remember what else. We ate until our buttons were bursting and then they brought out desert! What a place, a meal I'll remember forever.

Anyway we really enjoyed Savannah, oh wait, one last spot:

Leopold's ice cream, a real old time ice cream shop. Another MUST if you're in Savannah. Get the waffle cone, you'll thank yourself.

A wedding in Italy

When I last left you we had traveled to the south east of Italy for a wedding.
The whole point of the trip was the wedding right?

Soverato is a bit like Old Orchard Beach, its a tourist town. Its actually a bit smaller than OOB and I'd say its a tourist town for Italian tourists, not the kind of spot I'd expect North Americans in. English was uncommon which I think is one of the scary and fun things when traveling. We got lots of opportunities to pantomime and gesture. I also quite like not being exactly sure what will happen next. What is this thing that I'm being served? What will it taste like?

The wedding was on the beach, well at the beach. It started to sprinkle just as we arrived so they opted for "plan B" which was under cover although they did get pictures on the beach.

You can see the two photographers here, they were madmen. I've worked at a few weddings and I've never seen photographers like these guys, they were literally everywhere. Kurt tells me they have thousands of pictures.

I had asked Kurt about the dress code for the wedding and he bemoaned that Victoria was making him wear pants. Everybody was pretty casual which was fun. A few months later they had a ceremony in Massachusetts and we all dressed up more, unfortunately that day was stinking hot.

Angie and I thought that this room full of food was dinner and had a couple plates worth, it turns out that this was actually the appetizers...

This is the dinner menu for those who can read Italian.

And for those who cannot.

 I had more octopus in 3 days than I've had in the rest of my life put together.

Proof that Angie ate octopus.

Not everyone was so adventurous. Johanna got special chicken tenders.

The fish was amazing!

 After dinner the appetizer room had been converted to the desert room.

Amazing right?

There were the normal speeches and such but of course I had to get in. Angie and I started dating in 1996 (gads that seems so long ago) and I think the first family gathering I attended would have been Easter '97. Kurt and Johanna would have been quite young.
Angie and I used to always bring toys for Kurt and Johanna at Christmas. We stopped doing it at some point and I think some of the joy went out of Christmas. So while we were out wandering around I picked up some Kinder Joy eggs. I actually wanted Kinder surprise eggs but couldn't find any, they're illegal in the US...

I presented the eggs to Kurt, Victoria and Johanna and apparently a lot of people thought I was a high point for the night. It proves you don't have to spend a lot of money, or really think things through to make people happy.

Next time: Sorrento and the Charming Accommodation!

Travel to a wedding

So I mentioned we'd gone to Italy, the purpose of the trip was a wedding, Angie's cousin Kurt marrying Victoria. Victoria's family is from Soverato which is kind of in the instep of the boot, so southern Italy.


Google says its 632km or 392 miles from Rome to Soverato, we opted to fly to Lamezia and then take the train about 2 hours to Soverato. On the train we met Josh and Nicole who had taken the train all the way from Rome which is about 7 hours total. I realize now that flying was a screw up. They left their hotel at about the same time we did and just chilled on a train. We had to take the train from Rome to the airport and then fight our way through the airport. Get a cab from the airport to the train station and get on the train. So learn from us, just take the train, it takes the same amount of time overall.

This train ride was one for the books, I wish I had pictures. The train was 1950s or '60s era, diesel and had 2 gears. Seriously, you could feel when the train shifted gears. I sat across from an old guy, I'd guess he was in his late '70s but he could have been older. He fell asleep and started leaning forward. Angie and I were sure that at any moment I was going to have this old guy in my lap. Interesting ride. The scenery was amazing though, Italy is exactly as beautiful as you've been led to believe.

Strangely I don't have any pictures at all from our first night in Soverato. It was kind of an odd time. Kurt is 10 years younger than Angie, his parents are around 20 years older than us. So we were of left without anybody our age to hang around with. Everybody was really nice but you could tell there was a generational divide.

Anyway the hotel was lovely, if slightly unprepared to deal with a hoard of Americans. My biggest issue was coffee. The coffee in Italy is good but its espresso or cappuccino which is espresso with foam. I was having a hard time getting the volume of coffee I was used to. I'm adaptable and lack of coffee isn't the end of the world but...

I wish I had taken more pictures. I thought I had, I think I've lost some. I can't find pictures of us dipping our toes in the Mediterranean for instance.

The food was amazing, these pictures are from the rehearsal dinner, that table never got empty, thats just all they had out at once. I took the close up shot to show Angie's grandmother that weiners wrapped in crescent rolls happen in Europe too.

Last night I spent a bunch of time uploading more pictures, seriously, more than 100. I'm going to go back and re-edit my last post with the pictures of Castle Sant'Angelo, if you're interested go check that out.

Next: A Wedding in Italy!