If you are thinking about driving along the Antebellum Trail in Georgia from Athens to Macon (or the reverse), go no further and read this post about my road trip!
I drove from Athens to Macon because a few days later I was going to drive to Savannah via Macon, so I did not want to go there twice in such a short period of time.
Athens is also up north, closer to Atlanta where I was flying to, staying for five days while at the International Poultry Processing Expo at the World Congress Center.
Renting a Car from Alamo
I flew into Atlanta on Saturday and picked up my car from Alamo. I rented through Netflights again and chose Alamo as they are always hassle free and good value.
This was my fifth rental with Netflights and Alamo in the USA and it always worked out very well. I normally pick their full cover option which means I don’t need to worry about an accident or scratching the car because the zero excess covers everything.
Unfortunately what I did not plan for was the high cost of parking in Downtown Atlanta! If I had known how expensive the parking would be I would have picked up in the morning instead.
Anyhow, I parked up near Peachtree Street and paid $20 for the privilege on Saturday night and another $20 on Sunday night! Pretty crazy! And on Monday I had to pay $10 for an extension because I overstayed!
So in the end my car hire came to £53 for two days and I spent $50 on parking for the same amount of time!
It was unbelievable, but I couldn’t do anything about it because my room did not come with parking!
Well, after the shocking cost of parking I headed upstairs and crashed out then I woke early in the morning and drove out towards Athens on I-85 then Highway 29.
The drive to Athens from Atlanta took about an hour and ten minutes, which went by really quick.
Arriving in Athens Early Morning
I would recommend arriving in Athens early in the morning so you can park up and go for a nice long walk on your own, without the tourist and student crowds bothering you.
Athens is one of those old towns in Georgia, in fact one of the oldest with the USA’s first publicly funded universities!
The University of Georgia was incorporated in 1785, making Georgia the first state to charter a state-funded University.
In the end, a five-man delegation unanimously agreed to locate the University of Georgia on a hill above Cedar Shoals, which is in today’s Athens.
The University of Georgia
One of the members, John Milledge, bought 633 acres from Daniel Easley on July 25, 1801, and named it Athens later donating the land to UGA.
The University of Georgia later received federal funds for instruction in agriculture and mechanical arts in 1872 and slowly grew into what it is today.
Most of the historic university buildings are scattered around the downtown areas of Athens, within easy walking distance from the Main Street.
I parked up my car on Washington Street, not far from the Visitor Center and then started walking towards the Town Hall.
Athens’ Town Hall is an amazing structure, built in 1904 in a typical US public building style. It has a big dome at the center and a main entrance facing the street.
The building is on an elevation and it is very easy to find since you can spot the dome from pretty much anywhere.
The Antebellum Buildings
In all honesty, Athens looked so different from what I expected! It was absolutely beautiful and felt more Greek than the Greek capital city itself! All the pretty buildings, Greek Revival style structures and well kept lawns gave the feeling of a prosperous town!
It is also here in Athens where they exhibited the famous two barrelled cannon, which is right next to Athens City Hall.
As you walk here you will notice the City Water Offices and the Post Office on either side of Washington Avenue. Both of these buildings are quite fascinating and in the Greek Revival style, covered in white marble.
Once I took a couple of photos of Athens Town Hall I headed down towards the Main Street and Georgia University. I’ll be honest: the Main Street in Athens is not exciting at all, but the University grounds are quite the opposite!
The gardens were huge and the buildings fascinating! The tourism office put out several interpretive signs to help the visitors learn about the history of Athens and Georgia, so it will be very easy for you to navigate around Athens.
Here they explained the history of Georgia University and how the structures around here were built. The University received a huge land grant, covering about 40,000 acres, which funded the university for a long time.
Athens Bagel Company
I spent about an hour walking around the University campus and downtown Athens then I went to get breakfast at the Athens Bagel Company. The store was full of students and locals eating various kinds of bagels on a Sunday morning which was good to see.
I picked the scrambled egg and avocado bagel with a bit of red pepper but I’ll be honest it was a bit blend!
Anyhow, the bagel filled me up and I then popped into the car and drove to Watkinsville, my next stop on the Antebellum Trail Road Trip!
Driving Along the Antebellum Trail
The Antebellum Trail is basically a 100 mile trek through seven historic communities that escaped General Sherman’s burning march through Georgia to Savannah by the sea.
Whilst on the trail, you will learn a lot about General Sherman’s March and how it affected the communities of Georgia.
General Sherman, as the saying goes, marched through Georgia to destroy towns and industry and to break the back of the revolutionaries during the Civil War.
The US Civil War in Georgia
Apropo Civil War! In Georgia they call it the War of Independence of the Southern States and various other forms, which really surprised me when I first read it!
Whether you come on your own or as part of group of friends and family, you can easily spend days wondering around on Georgia’s Antebellum Trail enjoying history and learning about life as it was 200 years ago.
The best is that Explore Georgia, the state’s tourism board provides an entire website with itineraries to help you make the most out of your trip.
Watkinsville – Georgia
So back to my second stop on the Antebellum Trail: Watkinsville. In all fairness, Watkinsville is a very small town and it took me about five minutes to walk across it but it doesn’t mean it isn’t rich in history!
In fact, at the beginning of the 19th centure Watkinsville was the seat of the local county government but when Athens gained more importance they moved the county seat there.
This annoyed the people of Watkinsville so much that they split out of Clark County and founded their own county now called Oconee County!
A little bit like Brexit today!
You can read about this and other bites of history in front of the court house then get back in your car and drive down south towards Madison!
Visiting Madison in Georgia
I arrived in Madison around 11AM and the weather was pretty chilli so I began looking for a café to warm up a bit.
In the end I decided to just walk around the main square and down to the train station and back because I wanted to make good progress to Milledgeville that day to go on a tour of the old Governor’s Building.
Madison was founded in 1809 as the seat and largest town of Morgan County in Georgia. It was on the stagecoach route between Charlestown, South Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana as well as the north south route from Philadelphia.
Later on with the advent of the railways it became a junction for two main railroad lines, making it an important trading point along the way.
Thriving Cotton Exports
What basically happened here was fairly typical of the age: the plantation owners would bring in their cotton and other products to the local warehouses and sell them on to the main ports like Savannah and Charlestown for exports.
In the process they made a ton of money spent it on building huge Antebellum Style homes and Greek Revival public buildings like the Morgan County Courthouse.
Many magazines and publications now call Madison one of the most beautiful cities in the world and most certainly in the United States of America!
I was taken aback by the jaw-dropping beauty of some of the public and private buildings and I would have liked to spend more time here to take in all the sights and scenery.
Driving to Milledgeville
Unfortunately it was a Sunday and I wanted to make it to the last tour in Milledgeville that day.
The drive to Milledgeville took me through Eatonton, another stunning small town on the Antebellum Trail down south from Athens.
Eatonton is right next to Lake Oconee and the Oconee National Forest, so if you like a nature trail then this could be your perfect base. I was mega surprised by the clean streets, manicured lawns and huge white Greek Revival buildings that lay pretty much everywhere in Eatonton!
It was like everywhere I looked another even more stunning building welcomed me and I spent my time Eatonton soaking in the splendor of this small town.
Milledgeville History
From Eatonton I made my way direct to Milledgeville, the former seat of Georgia State. It was here where the former statesmen met at the old Capitol and where the Governor of Georgia resided for several decades until the government moved to nearby Atlanta.
The former Capitol building now functions as the training grounds for the army and the Old Governor’s Mansion as a grand museum.
The most interesting snippet of information I learned at the Old Capitol was that it was here the State of Georgia decided to secede from the Union thereby declaring war on the northern states.
In Milledgeville you can literally not walk down a street without seeing a handful of breathtaking Greek Revival mansions or carefully manicured lawns as well as the many UGA buildings lining the streets!
The Old Governor’s Mansion
I arrived at the old Governor’s Mansion just before three for the hour-long tour then I decided to head back to Atlanta as I wanted to meet a couple of my friends for dinner.
Although I did not visit the Jarrell Plantation on the same day, I will include it here as it is part of the Antebellum Trail. The Jarrell Plantation is normally open only Thursday through Saturday, so even if I had had a bit more time I would not have been able to visit on a Sunday.
The good news is that from 10 March 2019 the site will also be open on Sundays, allowing for more visitations!
Given that this is on the Antebellum Trail I thought it was highly unusual that they closed for Sundays but it seems common sense prevailed!
The guy on the desk told me it was because of financial reasons – there were budget cuts in Georgia and the US in general…
As I mentioned, later in the week I drove to Savannah from Atlanta and I decided to stop at the Jarrell Plantation to find out what a former slave labour camp looked like.
The Jarrell Plantation in Georgia
The Jarrell Plantation was founded in 1847 by John Jarrell who kept 42 slaves to grow cotton and other product on his 600-acre plantation.
After the Civil War and emancipation, John increased his land holdings to nearly 1,000 acres farmed by former slaves but most of them soon left and the slave houses deteriorated or disappeared.
Today you can see all the old structures restored and marvel at how people lived back in the middle of the 19th century in the harsh Georgian conditions.
Owning Slaves in Georgia
Truth be told, the Jarrell’s were very industrious and seemed like hard working people, but what I cannot understand is how they were able to enslave other human beings for their own benefit?
And what surprised me even more was the fact that the last generation of the Jarrell family still lives on site, at the top of the hill in a nice Antebellum Style villa!
I would recommend coming at least two hours before closing time as the site is very interesting in a gorgeous setting with bird singing and the goats bleating.
Driving to Atlanta through Macon
Macon is about 25 minutes driving from the Jarrell Plantation and it has many historic buildings, including the 18,000 square foot, 7-story Italian Renaissance Revival mansion known as the “Palace of The South”.
Macon is also home to North America’s only reconstructed earth lodge and an extensive historic downtown district. Unfortunately I had no time to stop here but if you have, then you should definitely make it a stop on your Antebellum Trail Road Trip!
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