George: Charleston and Savannah are both deeply committed to the arts and culture. The Telfair museum of art is the southeast’s oldest art center displaying works from the 18th and 19th centuries and a new addition highlights more contemporary works. Not to be outdone, Charleston’s Gibbs Museum of art is smaller but noteworthy for its collection of American paintings, sculpture and photography.
Female: The Gibbs museum, our collection focuses, we always like to have a tie back to the area and back to Charleston so we have artists that’s from here and artists that travelled here. We always try to have some tie to the area. They are separate and distinct but both institutions, we do have a tied to the south and through that we do have similar histories again, I know they are as closely tied to the civil war as well. But they’re very unique cities. Both very tied to the water as well but we have our own character.
George: Both towns have their centers of commerce. Savannah’s city market is where you dine and drink at some restored structures with their individual quirky charms. Then stroll down the river street for shopping and for contemporary nightlife. Charleston’s version is called the market. It’s more like a traditional in town shopping place. And try the benny wafers, sesame crackers from west Africa reminding us of the African influence in both these cities from the Gula and Gichi cultures. At night, both cities come alive in a strange way. Ghost tours are popular. In 2002, the American institute of parapsychology named Savannah America’s most haunted city. As they say, when in Savannah, so that’s why I went on a ghostly house tour at Sixth Senses Savannah and after a ghost tour, you’ll be in the proper spirit to visit cemeteries. Both Charleston and Savannah have interesting ones. Savannah’s main cemetery is the final resting place of patriots and other people of note as well as just plain folks.
Here at Colonial Park Cemetery, there are several family burial vaults like this one. the Screven family was interred here during the 1800s. And the question is, how were people buried, after all, the front is brick and the side is all concrete or cement. The astute among you may have realized that this is the way in. When someone died and was about to be buried, these bricks were removed. There’s a stairway leading down into a vault and several places for members of the family to be buried. After the funeral’s over, the bricks are replaced and they wait for the next death. People here say this is the perfect shape for a burial vault because it looks like just a bed.
When you’ve enjoyed city life, take a short drive to the ocean. Both cities have beaches nearby. Tiby Island called Savannah’s beach is just 20 minutes from the historic district. Tiby is an Indian term meaning salt. The island has been occupied by the Spanish, English, French and confederates, even pirates. Today, the salt water makes Tiby a special place for sunning, swimming, fishing, kayaking and even a dolphin tour and drop by the Tiby Lighthouse. How many lighthouses are left in Georgia?
Male: Originally there were 15 but sadly there are only five left and of the five, only three are open to the public.
George: This is the treasure, it’s the oldest and the biggest.
Male: Very much so and real opportunity not only the tallest lighthouse in the state but also experience what very few other lighthouses offer to the public today and that is what I call the total lighthouse experience. You were able to come in, climb the lighthouse but also visit the keeper’s dwellings which depict the lifestyle and living conditions of keepers and their families.
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