The Little Town of Darien, Georgia

 

In April of this year, The Colonel and I took a little vacation. We visited Savannah, GA, Daufuskie Island, SC (more on Daufuskie Island later) and the little town of Darien, GA.

We had been through Darien back in 2011 when we visited Fort King George but this time we wanted to stay overnight. We booked a room at the lovely Open Gates Bed & Breakfast.

Zach, owner and chef (he had fresh chocolate chip cookies waiting for us) of the B&B, welcomed us to the beautiful house built in 1876. He told us that we were his only guests during our stay there (there are five guest rooms available). Zach gave us a tour of the house (to include the kitchen) and told us that we had full run of the place (just turn out lights and lock the front door before we went to bed). We had booked the Island Room.

The Colonel and I dropped our things off in our room and then went for a walk in town. Darien is on Georgia's coast at the mouth of the Altamaha River and is about 50 miles south of Savannah. It is the second oldest (Savannah is the first) planned city in Georgia and was originally called New Inverness.

Darien was founded in 1736 by Scottish Highlanders who were recruited by General James Oglethorpe (he founded the Georgia Colony in 1733 with 114 colonists in Savannah) to act as settler-soldiers to protect the Georgia Colony from the Spanish in Florida.

General Oglethorpe visited New Inverness (Darien) in 1736 and the marker below marks the spot where he had his shelter beneath the oak tree (just a stump remains) while visiting.

We walked in the little town of Darien and had a nice dinner in a restaurant along the Altamaha River. There was a baby gator in the river outside the restaurant. There were also boats moored along the river.

I took some photographs of some of the pretty houses in Darien as we walked after our dinner.

As well as some old ones.

Below is the old jail in Darien and some very old tabby ruins along the waterfront. These used to be the warehouses for the cotton exchange and the naval stores from 1815-1830. The final photograph is of the Adam-Strain building built around 1813. It was a mercantile store and a ship's chandlery.

It was getting late and looked like rain, so we headed back to our B&B. On our way back, we saw this little fountain near the B&B.

Before we locked up the house and went to bed, we took pictures of the house (we did not take any of the empty guests rooms, although Zach did allow us to see each room....lovely. You can see them on the B&B's website). We also spent some time in the den, relaxing with a book and looking out the huge picture window.

We had a nice, peaceful sleep that evening and awoke to the smell of Zach cooking our breakfast. The delicious aromas of coffee, bacon and sweet stuffed crepe cigars (a Zach specialty) wafted into our room. The crepes were delicious but the bacon was the bomb. I forgot to take a photo of our breakfast (blame it on the bacon), so the image below is from the internet. 

We enjoyed our overnight stay in Darien and liked the B&B. We want to go back again one day. I forgot to say that the tasty, handmade chocolates that were on our pillows upon arrival, came from the chocolatier across the street from the B&B. It happens to be an old, beautiful house too. We shopped for some goodies there.