Well, we are now into Day 3 and I’m getting into my blogging stride! It takes a while for the old grey matter to start functioning again. A year’s a long time in the life of the elderly!!

So, today we headed out for our VIP Tour of Coca-Cola World. It was truly magnificent. Our tour guide Steve, originally from Miami, was very knowledgeable and it made the whole tour a truly memorable event.

Confederate Colonel John Pemberton who was wounded in the American Civil War, became addicted to morphine and began a quest to find a substitute for the dangerous opiate. The prototype Coca-Cola recipe was formulated at Pemberton’s Eagle Drug and Chemical House, a drugstore in Columbus, Georgia, originally as a coca wine. He may have been inspired by the formidable success of Vin Mariani, a French coca wine.

In 1885, Pemberton registered his French Wine Coca nerve tonic.  In 1886, when Atlanta and Fulton County passed prohibition legislation, Pemberton responded by developing Coca-Cola, essentially a nonalcoholic version of French Wine Coca. The first sales were at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886.  It was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass at soda fountains, which were popular in the United States at the time due to the belief that carbonated water was good for the health.  Pemberton claimed Coca-Cola cured many diseases, including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence.

The exact formula of Coca-Cola’s natural flavorings (but not its other ingredients, which are listed on the side of the bottle or can) is a trade secret. The original copy of the formula was held in Sun Trust Bank’s main vault in Atlanta for 86 years. On December 8, 2011, the original secret formula was moved from the vault at SunTrust Banks to a new vault containing the formula and the vault is on display for visitors to see at the World of Coca-Cola museum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As Coca-Cola has been a sponsor of the Olympics since 1928 they have an exhibition at the museum and one of the highlights for us today was when Steve arranged for a torch from the London 2012 Olympics to be brought out so that Si and I could hold it and have our photographs taken. It was very exciting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then went to visit the Margaret Mitchell house (author of Gone With The Wind). Being a big movie buff this was very exciting for me. In fact, Margaret and her husband only rented an apartment within the building. The building has burnt down twice and been renovated but the apartment where she wrote the book managed to survive. It was quite small and even when she made a lot of money through the book and movie she never actually owned her own house.

She wrote GWTW in 1926 when she was laid-up at home with a broken ankle and having read the local library and becoming bored, it was suggested that she may like to write a book. She wrote the book never intending for it to be published. At one point when a publisher came knocking about her book she denied ever writing one. She considered it not worthy of publication and thought her own writing was awful. She was eventually persuaded to let a publisher look at her manuscript and the rest as they say, is history.

Once it was published in 1936 it became an overnight success and she became an instant celebrity and earned her the Pulitzer Prize.  The film version, also lauded far and wide, came out just three years later. More than 30 million copies of her Civil War masterpiece have been sold worldwide, and it has been translated into 27 languages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sadly Margaret died on the 17th August 1949 at the age of 49 after being knocked down by a speeding car. She only ever wrote the one novel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner this evening came in the form of fish and chips!! Oh dear, boring! But there really weren’t many restaurants from us to chose from and so we ended up in Fado Irish pub. I have to say the meal was delicious. I, of course, had the smaller lunch portion whilst my ‘dear one’ had the dinner portion which consisted of two pieces of fish plus chips and coleslaw!! The bread pudding dessert with ice cream was pure delight. We shared that!

A question for the ladies reading the blog ………………. what is it about men and them never listening to what their good ladies tell them!!?? I went out of my way to purchase sun-tan lotion with insect repellant because I knew that coming here with the high temperatures and humid conditions would equal mosquitoes. I’m very prone to mosquito bites so covered myself from head to toe yesterday, Si didn’t and of course what happened ……….. we were no sooner in the woods and bing, bang, bosh, he’s bitten half a dozen times! Today, he’s covered in lotion!

I’ve been meaning to post this photo of the courtyard at our hotel here in Atlanta. A lovely place to sit for a drink at any time of day!

Before we came to Atlanta we were told there wasn’t really much to see here but our experience has been that in fact there’s lots to see but we will have to save everything else for another day as we are off to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park tomorrow.

See you there!