Florida, Jacksonville - Sunday, May 19, 2019 - Tour of Old St. Augustine

We’ve been to St. Augustine before and we are looking forward to another visit today.  In 1513 Ponce de Leon claimed Florida for Spain. Pedro Mendez and 700 soldiers and colonists founded St. Augustine in September 1565 making it the oldest continually occupied European settlement in North America.  The town was burned and rebuilt several times, the last time was in 1702 so none of the buildings in current St. Augustine are any older than that.


On our way we crossed over the Dames Point Bridge.  It is 2 miles long and 175 feet high.  My pictures don’t do it justice.

We parked in the very ornate parking garage across from the visitor’s center.  This garage is within walking distance to everything in old town St. Augustine.  Cost per day is $16.

The visitor’s center isn’t nearly so ornate and unfortunately needs a little scrub.

The inside of the visitor’s center is much nicer than the outside.

You would be surprised at how many people try to take their big trucks and SUVs down these narrow brick streets.

This cute bed and breakfast is called the Hemmingway House, not because Hemmingway has ever been there, but because Hemmingway is the owner’s favorite author.

Our destination for lunch is Harry’s Restaurant, the red building.

We opted for outside seating.

Our appetizer, bacon wrapped scallops on fried grit cakes, was amazing.  Greg usually shies away from grits, but he seemed to like them fried.

I had the blackened shrimp salad and Greg had a chicken chef salad.  Both were great choices.

Old St. Augustine is right on the Atlantic Intercostal waterway, a continuous navigation channel that begins in Virginia and ends in Key West.  It provides a route for commercial and recreational vessels that aren’t able to travel safely in the open ocean.

The Bridge of Lions drawbridge spans the intercostal waterway connecting St. Augustine to Anastasia Island.  It was completed in 1927 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

As we approached, the bridge was closed but we could hear the announcement that the bridge would open in one minute.

The bridge went up and a large sailboat made its way through.

This pirate ship in the marina is an eye catcher.  It is used for tours.

This beautiful building served as the Governor’s House from 1710-1812.

I was hoping we could get into this building for a walk through, but everything was closed up for some construction.  This was previously the very elite Ponce de Leon Hotel.  It is currently the main building of Flagler College.  The hotel was built by Henry Flagler, co-founder of Standard Oil.  It was completed in 1887.  Tiffany and Company provided the many stained glass windows in the dining room.  Electricity was supplied by Edison Electric Company.  It was one of the first buildings to be wired for electricity from the onset.  It helped that Edison was a friend of Flagler.  I read that when the hotel opened Flagler had to hire special people to just turn on the lights in the rooms because many of the guests were afraid of electricity and wouldn’t do it themselves. 

The beautiful windows in the dining room are hard to see from the outside because they are now covered with Plexiglas.  I think they would still be very beautiful from the inside.

We were able to see a few of the special artistic touches up close.

St. George Street is the main street in Old St. Augustine.

 We visited a gourmet popsicle store for dessert – I had champagne mango.  Neither the outside nor the inside were picture worthy, but this stairway inside was very cute. 

Lots of artist alleys off of St. George Street.

Many of the buildings are built of the same material as this wall, I think it is called “coquina”.

Florida, St. Augustine - Friday, December 6, 2013 - The Nation's Oldest City

The weather today was in the mid-80s, it was a beautiful day for a ride to St. Augustine.  I had such a good time today.

Along the way we stopped in the town of Neptune Beach to take a walk along the beach to pick up some shells.

 

We weren’t the only ones out enjoying the beach

 

 

 

We stopped at the Flying Iguana for lunch.  We were lucky enough to snag one of the outside tables.

We had an amazing queso dip and chips for an appetizer.  After seeing the size of it we decided on just one taco apiece for lunch.  The waitress recommended three, I’m glad we didn’t take her recommendation.  The tacos were delicious.  They had tacos made of some things you wouldn’t normally think of coming in tacos – like the one Greg had, it was called a “Southern Comfort”.  It had a southern fried chicken tender, redeye gravy and pickled okra (he said it was good).

After lunch we rode on to St. Augustine the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the continental United States.  They have begun to commemorate 450 years of unbroken history.  It was founded in 1565.

We went first to the Castillo de San Marcos.  Construction on this fortress began in 1672 and was completed some 20 years later.

 

It is built of coquina stone which is a locally quarried soft shell rock.

 

 

It supposedly didn’t become brittle and crumble under cannon fire.  Obviously that is true since it is still standing.

This is a hot shot furnace used to heat cannonballs so that when they hit wooden ships the ships would catch on fire.

 

 

The cannons were supposed to be fired at 2:30, so we waited.  I wanted to get a picture of the cannonball coming out of the cannon.

When the cannon went off, it was so loud I jumped and just got a picture of the sky.

The fort overlooks Matanzas Bay.  There were lots of boats on the bay today.  I thought this one was particularly interesting.

 

 

They had to raise the bridge to let a barge and a tall sailboat through.

The Old City gates are made of the same coquina stone as the fort.

St. Georges Street is for pedestrians only and has shops on both sides.

And more shops veering off the main street

This is supposed to be the oldest wooden school house.  It is one of the oldest wooden structures in the city.  The sun was shining from the wrong direction for me to get really good pictures this afternoon.

A couple of my pictures of the architecture did turn out ok.

 

 

We didn’t get to see nearly all of the city today, but the weather forecast is looking good for us to make a return trip – need to drink from that Fountain of Youth!!