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Disclaimer: The following story is not intended to be a professional report on my recent trip to Florida nor is the history contained therein a consistently accurate survey of St. Augustine or European exploration and settlement of North America. Also, no wildlife were hurt during the preparation of this report with the exception of one seagull whom I cursed for barging into the middle of one of my photographs. Stupid bird.
For quite some time now I've wanted to see Castillo de San Marcos so I utilized some vacation time to drive to St. Augustine, FL with Denise for a three night stay. Yes, that's right. I drove. After calculating the cost of tickets by air and a rental car we kept a few dollars in our collective pocket by using ground transportation rather than fly.
Our drive south through Georgia was uneventful. Normally, I wouldn't include this fact in a story about Florida but, this is quite rare for me since every automobile trip I've taken through Atlanta since 1985 included, free of charge, a traffic jam.
We stopped in Valdosta, GA for the night despite the absence of traffic since we got a late start on Sunday morning.
We checked-in Monday at the St. Augustine Comfort Suites on San Marco Boulevard. The location was convenient to the old city center and the room was clean. The only complaint I have about the hotel was the defrost/cook knob on the room's microwave oven was permanently set on defrost. So, my leftovers from Harry's were eaten cold since heating them would have taken approximately 22 years, 3 months, 17 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes, and 58 seconds.
The city of St. Augustine was founded by the Spanish in 1565, one year after the French established Fort Caroline to challenge Spain's 1513 claim to sovereignty. The extant fort however, is not a 16th century construction. The nine previous fortifications were wooden. This fort was begun in 1672 and completed in 1675. Renamed Fort Marion in 1825 after Spain ceded Florida to the United States (1821), it was utilized for military purposes until 1900.
Denise sat outside and enjoyed the sun while I took an abbreviated tour of the interior. Castillo de San Marcos appears to be in pretty good condition with the exception of notable crack repairs in the wall near the two inland corners. The moat, which originally surrounded the fort, has been filled with dirt and the fortifications extended.
After visiting the fort we took a walk to familiarize ourselves with layout of the old city. Me, I wanted to see colonial buildings and unique architecture. Denise, the beach and shopping!
Although the city predates the fort by 100 years, it's almost completely devoid of 16th and 17th century structures. This is due partly to the impermanent nature of wooden structures. However, in this case, the primary reasons the buildings are gone is because the city was burned by the British military in 1702. Consequently, most of the surviving colonial buildings seem to be mid-18th century structures on both sides of the beginning of British rule in 1763. There's also a portion of the old city wall and gate (opened 1739) at the north end of St George Street.
The city's Plaza de la Constitucion is a first. It's the oldest public park in the United States created in 1573 by Spanish ordinance. It was renamed in 1812 to honor the Spanish constitution and includes a curious Confederate monument. I say curious because some of the surnames that appear on it are so different from the vast majority of names found on Confederate rosters from the Civil War. Those surnames are Gomez, Llambias, and Lopez.
A notable place across the street from the plaza is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, home of the nation's oldest Catholic parish (1565). The current church dates to 1797. It was built to replace an earlier church that was destroyed by the South Carolina governor during Queen Anne's War. The interior is more ornate than the exterior possibly because it was rebuilt after a fire in 1887.
After our visit in the cathedral we walked the length of St. George street back toward our hotel stopping frequently for Denise to walk inside the stores to check out jewelry and bric-a-brac prices. We passed several notable buildings both public and private including the Casa Avero (1749) that served as a Greek Orthodox shrine for Minorcan settlers that arrived in St. Augustine (1768) from their initial New Smyrna settlement, south of St. Augustine.
That night ate at Harry's. It's a small chain of restaurant's that includes a store in New Orleans. The gumbo was delicious and the jambalaya portion was big enough to feed the Jacksonville Jaguars offensive line. We finished our meal with a slice of Key lime pie which our waiter (Frank) recommended. He was right. It was vet good although we couldn't finish it after the generous dinner portion we were given.
On Tuesday Denise and I went our separate ways in the morning. I walked quite a bit, trying to take in as much of the old city as I could including some of the 19th century houses reminiscent of the port cities of Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA. respectively.
The old Ponce de Leon hotel, built by the wealthy industrialist Henry Flagler and now a college bearing his name is really impressive as is the Memorial Presbyterian Church (congregation established 1823) dedicated in 1890 to the memory of his daughter who died as the result of childbirth complications in 1889. The church is built in the Venetian Renaissance style inspired by St. Mark's Cathedral in Italy. The 92 stained glass windows were designed by German artist Hermann Schladermundt and installed in 1902. Inside you'll find a 15th century copy of St. Augustine's City of God and a 90 rank Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ which I had the great fortune to hear during the organist's practice session for her Saturday recital.
Denise and I reunited for a trip to Vilano beach on the north side of the entry to St. Augustine harbor. While Denise soaked in some rays I took a short walk around the point to look at the city from the outer bank and then went into the water for a swim. After floundering in the waves and swallowing a bucketful of seawater, we went back to hotel to recover for dinner and take the Haunted Pub Tour.
For dinner we chose Athena, a small Greek restaurant on the plaza, for our evening repast. The Greek salad and grouper were delicious and our waitress, Maeva, was a treasure. Indeed, we liked the meal so much we went back for breakfast Wednesday morning. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
After Tuesday dinner we met 13 other visitors for a paranormal tour conducted by Paul, a retired snowbird from Boston who's been a regular visitor to St. Augustine since his childhood back in the '50s. The tour begins outside Beerhammer's and makes four refreshing stops (Nick and Brads, Harry's, Meehan's, and the Mill Top tavern) at which dark stories are retold about the checkered history of each building and the unsettling events that have been reported as having occurred there. For example, Nick and Brads' was once a small movie house in which a woman employee was crushed to death by falling pile of film canisters and Harry's was the home of a former Spanish governor whose daughter was so greatly attached to her childhood home she managed to reacquire the home when the British returned the city of St. Augustine to Spain in 1783. Beer, or course, is not a prerequisite for this tour but it can't hurt and if you're a light weight like me two stops is about all it took to reach my limit of Stella Artois.
Wednesday was an abbreviated day since we had a long drive home to make on Thursday. After breakfast with Stephanie and Maeva at Chryssaidis family restaurant (Athena) we drove over the Bridge of Lions to visit the restored St. Augustine light house and keeper's residence. It's a 219 step climb to the top from which great views are had of the old city, beaches, and the fort. The residence is a maritime/Coast Guard museum.
After our lighthouse tour we went back to the beach but the wind was a little stronger than the previous day leaving our skin with an ex-foliated sensation and an ear full of sand so we cut short our beach time and returned to old St. Augustine for an early dinner.
Located at the divergence of Avenida Menendez and Marine Street is O.C. White's Seafood and Spirits. This particular building dates back to 1790. It was constructed by Don Miguel Ysnardy as a residence, I think, but it later served as a hotel. It was disassembled in 1961 and moved to it's present location. What serves as outdoor dinning area surpasses the interior space and thank goodness for that because if all the people who were there when we arrived had been standing in line for a table I'm afraid we'd still be sitting on Marine street waiting for number 4623 to be called.
As it was though, we were seated inside right away.and enjoyed some live music while our meal was prepared. Denise ordered crab legs while I had a cup of New England clam chowder followed by a main course of Sterling Salmon served on a bed of fried spinach and a side of mixed vegetables which included squash, broccoli, carrots, and haricot vert. The meal was delicious. The salmon was chargrilled to perfection and the clam chowder was also very good. The one bad mark I give dinner was for the broccoli. It was overcooked, but the Corona beer more than made up for that small blemish.
There's more to do and see than the list of activities I've outlined above. For the kids, there's an alligator farm, pirate museum, the Fountain of Youth, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, and a nearby dolphin conservatory as well as golfing for the adults.
On the oldster scale, we give St. Augustine a 6.5. The relative size of the historic district which, though dating quite far into past, is small in comparison to other historic cities I've visited. Denise, on the other hand, was not especially impressed with the shopping or the beach although she really enjoyed the food. Plus, like many tourist places we've visited, it's a bit too commercial for our taste.
Would we go back? Probably not. Mostly because there are so many other places to go and things to see that we tend to look forward to new adventures rather than back, at the old ones. Denise has her eye's set on a trip to our west coast. Me, on the other hand, I'm hoping to make a trip east this year. Although I've been to the UK quite a few times, I'm up for a return engagement. A second trip to France would be nice for my 50th birthday or possibly a voyage to Germany? Then again, Turkey, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Russia wouldn't be so bad either.
Well, there you have it. All wrapped up with a bow. The drive home went pretty well. We got an early start Thursday morning but we encountered some very dense traffic in north Georgia. Nope, it wasn't Atlanta. We were delayed near Chattanooga by the remnants of storms that passed through the area and deposited the top of a billboard in the middle of the interstate causing a considerable delay.
Now, two more days of glorious sunshine and a little gardening before getting back to paid work. :silly:
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