SAVANNAH — We pulled our minivan up to a hotel in the Historic District and disgorged — two adults, three children and various drifts of luggage, toys, food wrappers and electronica. With pleasure, I handed the keys to the woman at the front desk.

"Will you need your car tonight?" she asked.

Photos by John Kessler/AJC (ENLARGE)
River Street Market Place An open-air market invites you to open your wallet — and vendors alongside the Savannah River are just waiting for you to do so.
John Kessler/AJC (ENLARGE)
A Tour of the Mercer Williams House Sure, it's a landmark in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," but you might want to skip that piece of trivia.
Stephen Morton/AP (ENLARGE)
Lunch outside the Historic District Pearl Johnson makes an offer you shouldn't refuse — a plate of oxtails, red rice, string beans and mac and cheese at Masada Cafe at the United House of Prayer for All People.
Stephen Morton/AP (ENLARGE)
Two glamorous construction sites The Mansion on Forsyth Park (left) recalls a Romanesque castle, minus dungeons and dragons, of course. The oh-so-hip Jepson Center for the Arts also awaits.
Stephen Morton/AP (ENLARGE)
Gottlieb's Restaurant and Dessert Bar Laurence Gottlieb, chef and co-owner of Gottlieb's, handles more than a fistful of dough in anticipation of the dinner crowd at the family's restaurant.
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IF YOU GO Getting there • By car: Savannah is about 250 miles from downtown Atlanta, a little more than a four-hour drive. Take I-75 south to I-16 east/Ga. 404 east toward Savannah, then take the Montgomery Street exit toward downtown Savannah. • By airplane: Expect to pay about $150 round trip. Information • Mercer Williams House Museum, 429 Bull St. 1-877-430-6352, 912-236-6352. Tickets and entry behind Mercer House at the Mercer House Carriage Shop, 430 Whitaker St. Tickets must be purchased in advance at the carriage shop or at http://www.mercerhouse.com. • River Street Market Place, east end of historic River Street. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily (winter closing time); until 8 p.m. starting in the spring. http://www.riverstreetmarketplace.com • Gottlieb's Restaurant and Dessert Bar, 1 W. Broughton St. 912-234-7447. 5:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 5-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, about $150. • Telfair's Jepson Center for the Arts. http://www.telfair.org. • The Mansion on Forsyth Park. http://www.mansiononforsythpark.com. • Masada Cafe at the United House of Prayer for All People, 2301 W. Bay St. (five miles east of City Hall). 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Mondays-Satur-days; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sundays. 912-236-9499. • Savannah Convention & Visitors Bureau, 101 E. Bay St. 1-877-728-2662, http://www.savcvb.com.

Not a chance.

This was our third family trip to Savannah, and we've learned that loving this city means never having to say, "I'm driving."

We walked everywhere. Through every square. To lunch at Mrs. Wilkes'. Down to Forsyth Park and up to River Street. In and out of every shop. This is a city best appreciated on foot.

But we kept our eyes peeled for any signs of new things to do, see or eat. We found these five.

1. A Tour of the Mercer Williams House

As our tour group congregated in the carriage house of this famous two-story rose brick mansion on Monterey Square, the guide turned to us to lay down the one inviolable house rule with a pleasant but stern expression.

"This tour," she began, "is about an architecturally significant house and the efforts taken by its most famous resident, Jim Williams, to restore it. It is not about either the book or the movie 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.' Please do not ask me about them."

Got that, Bucko? You can keep your questions about the home's infamous 1981 murder, John Berendt (author of the book) and Kevin Spacey (who portrayed Williams) to yourself.

Savannah's best-known mansion — a much-photographed background for snapshots of tourists posing with a "Look where I am!" smile plastered on their faces — has only in the past year opened its doors to guided tours.

The mansion was built in the 1860s for Johnny Mercer's great-grandfather. Williams' sister, Dorothy Kingery, who had the house on the market for several years for a reported $8 million, still lives there.

Our 30-minute tour took us through the four rooms downstairs, each filled with artwork and antiques collected by Williams.

A frisson went through the crowd as we were led into the study where Williams shot his lover, Danny Hansford, that fateful day almost 25 years ago.

"Any questions?" asked our guide warily.

No one dared pose the question on all our minds: Where was Hansford standing? Where's the hole where the bullet reportedly shot straight through a floorboard?

On the desk was a picture of two Williams family women flanking a dark, debonair-looking man. "Is that Mr. Williams?" I ventured.

"No," sighed the tour guide. "It's Kevin Spacey."

2. River Street Market Place

Ah, River Street. Ankle-twisting cobblestones, skanky bars and tourist trap restaurants. Can't we skip it this time?

No. We couldn't go to Savannah and not take a stroll along the water. Besides, we wanted a praline from the Savannah Candy Kitchen.

But we also found a little unexpected shopping. Open for just over a year, the River Street Market Place features about 50 vendors of world artifacts in an open-air agora. You can spend a perfectly happy hour looking at and possibly buying all kinds of things you don't need. Cheap watches. Needlework pillows for cat lovers. Handmade Nepalese Gurkha knives. Sarongs.

My favorite shop was Helen's Lucky Bamboo, where in addition to the providential Chinese houseplants, you can browse an incredible collection of glass obelisks laser-etched with designs that color prismatically when lit. "We have spirituals, NASCAR, animals and military — anything you could want!" the saleswoman called out cheerfully. Awww . . . how'd she know?

3. Gottlieb's Restaurant and Dessert Bar

Savannah offers a few reliable dining destinations, including Elizabeth on 37th, the Olde Pink House and Il Pasticcio. But compared to Charleston, S.C., the pool of upmarket restaurants feels shallow.

Luckily there's a new kid in town, and it has certainly goosed the local dining scene. Gottlieb's was recently awarded four diamonds from the American Automobile Association, the only Savannah restaurant to hold that high honor. Open since last February, it is the effort of three brothers from the local Gottlieb family that ran a much-loved bakery (also called Gottlieb's) for more than a century.

While the bakery was all about its legendary chocolate chewies, this restaurant shows off the serious cooking pedigrees of the two brothers who run the kitchen. Their style is updated Southern with an urban edge. Think chicken liver risotto, Deep South barbecue pork dim sum buns, and Brunswick stew made with rabbit and wild mushrooms.

Our meal began with a seriously amusing (and tasty) amuse bouche — a tiny nugget of fried chicken served on Barbie-doll biscuit. I just felt sorry for the waitress who is instructed to call it a "dainty tidbit." Braised Kobe beef short rib over Parmesan risotto with fried onion threads thankfully arrived as an appetizer; I had no qualms about snarfing up every fat-choked bite.

Local shrimp in a buttery New Orleans-style barbecue sauce was fine, but I was hoping for more creative flair. Oddly enough for a restaurant by the shore, seafood seems to be the weak link here. A leathery, flavorless hunk of grouper was no fun to eat, not when I could mooch a bite of pecan-crusted rack of Colorado lamb with creamy grits.

Can you guess that desserts shined? While the menu of fancy-restaurant sweets has appeal, we tossed it aside when the waitress rolled up the cart filled with frosted classic cakes. Hello, red velvet.

Better yet, the check came with a plate of miniature chocolate chewies.

4. Two glamorous construction sites

Almost 60 years ago, British Parliamentarian Lady Nancy Astor called Savannah a pretty lady with a dirty face, prompting then-Mayor Peter Roe Nugent to lead a cleanup campaign. Now the lady is getting a little cosmetic work done.

Eager to see the changes, we first strolled over to Telfair Square and gasped at the stark, modern structure going up by the Telfair Museum of Art. It's so . . . hip.

This building, the Jepson Center for the Arts, is a vast expansion of the Telfair slated for a fall opening. It will house the museum's exhibit of 20th- and 21st-century art as well as traveling exhibitions. Other features will include a sculpture garden and huge atrium. Architect Moshe Safdie is best known for Habitat '67 (an innovative apartment complex in Montreal), the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and Mamilla (a mixed-use development on the edge of Jerusalem's Old City). Despite a little wrangling with Savannah's Historic Review Board, Safdie has come up with a forward design.

Up on Forsyth Park, we espied an old, red brick mansion with conical Romanesque turrets that had seemingly replicated itself ad infinitum along the park's eastern edge. Before it was a big house; now it's a medieval French fortress with damsels distressing themselves high in the towers. What's going on?

The Mansion on Forsyth Park, that's what. This hotel, built as a massive extension to the 1888 mansion, is positioning itself as the city's first five-star property. It opens in March with 126 rooms, six suites, butler service, an art gallery and an exceptionally ambitious restaurant called 700 Drayton. The chef comes to Savannah fresh from opening restaurants in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Guests will be able not only to marinate in the spa, but they can take cooking classes in a state-of-the-art cooking school.

5. Lunch outside the Historic District

On our last day, we headed straight out on Bay Street in search of some good Southern food at less-than-touristic prices. And, hallelujah, we found it at the United House of Prayer for All People.

In the back of this church (part of a group founded by Charles M. "Sweet Daddy" Grace) is the Masada Cafe, a plain, tiled-floor cafeteria that serves lunch and early supper straight through the day.

What a perfect last stop. Great food, fine service and just outside the front door was the entrance ramp to the highway.

We feasted on fried chicken with just the right peppery bite to the skin (it prickled but didn't burn), firm-tender pole beans, stewed squash and the best macaroni and cheese that any of us had eaten. It managed to be crusty and cheesy but not overly rich.

In fact, all the food was like that: not too salty, not too rich. So we didn't feel at all guilty about indulging in glorious sweet potato pie. In fact, our only regret was in not taking a pie to go.

It might have made the drive back to Atlanta bearable.