2 Best Sights in Savannah, Georgia

The largest and most famous of Savannah's municipal cemeteries, Bonaventure spreads over 160 acres and sits on a bluff above the Wilmington River. Once a sprawling plantation, the land became a private cemetery in 1846 and was established as a public cemetery in 1907. An emblematic destination for visitors, the evocative landscape is one of lush natural beauty transposed against an elegant, eerie backdrop of lavish marble headstones, monuments, and mausoleums as well as sweeping oaks and blooming camellia trees. John Muir reportedly camped at Bonaventure in 1867 on his legendary "thousand-mile walk," and local photographer Jack Leigh, novelist and poet Conrad Aiken, and singer-songwriter Johnny Mercer are among those interred here. Great tours of the cemetery are offered by "Bonaventure Don."

Stroll the shaded pathways and read some of the old tombstone inscriptions in this park, the final resting place for Savannahians who died between 1750 and 1853. Many of those interred here succumbed during the yellow fever epidemic in 1820. Notice the dramatic entrance gate on the corner of Abercorn and Oglethorpe Streets. Local legend tells that when Sherman's troops set up camp here, they moved some headstones around and altered inscriptions for their own amusement, which partially explains the headstones mounted against the far wall. This spooky spot is a regular stop for ghost tours.