On our way up from Florida, we stopped for one day in Savannah. The primary reason was to visit the Jepson Gallery, part of the Telfair Museum, where an exhibit had been showing called Offering of the Angels: Paintings and Tapestries of the Uffizi Gallery. Saturday, March 30th, the day we visited, was the last day. We were just in time!
It was worth everything to see this exhibit. The exhibit consisted of about 48 paintings, most had been recently restored, and two tapestries, just the right size to "take it all in". It was wonderful. When we were at the Uffizi in about 1998, it was all under renovation and really, it was hard to see much. The lighting was poor, priceless artworks were more than a little haphazardly placed, and I remember being shocked that the windows were open to allow some cooling of the air - apparently no air conditioning. This exhibit in Savannah was a little jewel. (We definitely need to get back to the Uffizi again.)
The centerpiece of the exhibit was the Botticelli Madonna and Child. Fully restored, it is breathtaking for the facial expressions, the gentle coloring and the composition. As one woman said, with whom we spoke, it alone was worth the price of admission. Here it is, poached from the Jepson Web site:
The exhibit was the highlight of our day. We had done a trolley tour on a previous visit, and so we chose to walk everywhere this time. We walked through about half the squares. For those who have not been there, the historic district of Savannah is dotted with wonderful plazas that have beautiful old live oak trees and most squares have an abundance of azaleas and rhododendrons.
We also toured one of the several historic homes open for viewing, the Owens-Thomas House, built between 1816 and 1819. The architecture is English Regency, and some of the furnishings are original to the house.
This is a photo looking out at the garden at the rear of the house toward what was the old carriage house and slave quarters.
We drove from Savannah to Washington, DC, where we currently are. That two day drive was a nightmare. We thought that driving on Easter Sunday would be a piece of cake with light traffic. Wrong! We estimate that in the two days we were on I-95, we had at least 3 hours of traffic delays due to accidents, construction, or just heavy traffic. There were many cars loaded with Spring Break beach gear (folding chairs, towels piled high on the back seat, etc.), bicycles, pods on car tops, and RVs with returning snowbirds, like us. We were glad to reach our destination at 6:00 last night here at Cherry Hill Park in College Park, Maryland.
It is very chilly here in Washington. Last night it got to freezing and we know that for sure because we just took the kayak off the top of the car, and there were ice cubes in the little foot holes that had gotten water in them in I-95 from some heavy rain. We hear that the cherry blossoms are delayed for yet longer, and that they will probably not be at peak for another week. We will therefore not be here for them. Darn! But we will be here for 6 days before turning west and home, and will have several days in the District. There are some new things since we were last here, which we will try to see.
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