Great Visit To The Oldest City In The US - St. Augustine

St. Augustine, FL (78 degrees, blue skies)

 

Flagler College
 

 

We spent ten fun filled days in St. Augustine.  It's a beautiful historic city with plenty of attractions to keep you busy.  There are lovely beaches, interesting museums, eclectic antique stores, delicious gourmet restaurants, and much more. 

 

 

 

 

We are continuing to travel with our friends JC and Bev and were able to stay at the Elks Lodge.  It has 50 amp service and water (sewer dump nearby at the State Park).  It's a very active lodge and offers great food (all you can eat spaghetti night, prime rib on Friday, and a fun St. Patrick's Day celebration with a bag pipe band for entertainment).  The price was right at only $20/night and it's very conveniently located to the historic downtown area and the beautiful Anastasia Beach.  There are about 10 sites and no reservations are accepted in advance.  It's by far one of the best lodges.  Sites are close together at the back of the lodge.  Sorry, I forgot to take a picture. 

 

 

Lightner Museum

 

 

 

 

We spent a lot of time downtown and a few of the highlights are briefly described.  It's a great place to explore and it's steeped in history.  The collage above highlights the Lightner Museum and it's collection.  This was one of Flagler's (founder of Standard Oil) hotels and was quite the place to stay in 1887.  It even had a pool spanning the entire basement floor and a roof which opened to the night sky.  Starting in 1946 it has housed a collection of Otto Lightner.  It takes several hours to just see a small sampling of the items he collected during the Depression.  There are beautiful glass displays, antiques, music boxes, shells, and even cigar band art. 

 

Flagler College

 



Another highlight for us was a tour of the Flagler College.  Students give tours twice a day and it has the largest display of Tiffany glass in the world.  This was Flagler's premier hotel and at the time if you were lucky enough to be invited to stay it cost you 1/4 million dollars for a three month vacation.  It was always full.  Amazing!  Since 1968 it has been a liberal art college.  What a great place to go to school.  The cafeteria was breathtaking.  Be sure to take the tour to see some of the rooms not open to the general public. 

 

 

 

We also took another Segway Tour. This one was a combination of riding a Segway and stopping at historic sites to hear some facts about the city.  Our guide, Cary, loves good food and gave us lots of tips on restaurants to check out and ones to avoid.    It was fun and much more challenging than in Cocoa Beach due to the brick streets and busy traffic and oh yes...lots of motorcycles touring with Daytona Bike Week being  in full swing. 

 

 

Castillo de San Marcos

 

 

The Castillo de San Marcos is the centerpiece of St. Augustine and is a National Monument.  This fort was controlled by Spain, England, and the U.S.  There is a self guided tour and on weekends reenactors fire the cannon. 

 

 

 

 

There is another fort crucial to the protection of St. Augustine called Fort Matanzas.  It's located 20 minutes south of the downtown area.  The National Park Service offers a free guided ferry boat tour of the small fort.  The rangers told us the forts name Matanzas is Spanish for slaughter and of the tragic history while it was held by Spain in 1545.  Approximately 250 captured French soldiers were killed.  It is not known if this was done in vengeance or due to fears of not having enough food. 

 

Tour Boat

Fort in distance blocked access to the city

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Check back for more about St. Augustine.  We enjoyed a fun "foodie" tour of some great restaurants, learned some new photo techniques during a workshop, and had a fun visit to see lots of birds and ALLIGATORS!