FLORIDAST. AUGUSTINEST. AUGUSTINE CITY PROPER

 

We had two days to find something to do (or somewhere to go) between longer stops in Savannah and the Florida Keys on an extended vacation in early February 2018. A quick glance at a map showed that St. Augustine was on the route to southern Florida, and that stopping there could break up the drive time to the Keys. Plus, it was a place I'd always wanted to visit. So that's why this trip included St. Augustine.

But one and half days didn't give us much time to do a lot while we were there.

On the first afternoon and early evening that Lee Ann and I were there, we had lunch at the Salt Life Food Shack, and made stops at the St. Augustine beach, the St. Augustine Lighthouse and the Castillo de San Marcos. All of these will be covered at some point in my St. Augustine posts. 

For the next full day, we figured that if we took advantage of a trolley tour right off the bat, we’d learn a whole lot more about the community and its history to get a better idea on what “can't miss” things we’d want to take in on this visit ... and to put on a list to do on a subsequent visit.

It's not easy to pinpoint a focal point of St. Augustine. Is it the architecturally impressive Cathedral Basilica? The Historic Public Market and plaza (photo leading off the post)? Bridge of Lions? Flagler College campus or, across the street, Lightner Museum? St. George Street merchants' district? The lighthouse? And what about the Castillo de San Marcos, featured in a post here a couple days ago? We hit most of those on Feb. 2-3.

One of the things of interest for Lee Ann was the St. George Street merchants' district, where we stopped for lunch (at the Columbia Restaurant). Near the top of my favorites list was Flagler College, which will be featured in a near future post.

To view a larger and sharper version of any image here, just click on the photo. To see a full gallery of images from my visit to Old Town St. Augustine, click on the link in this sentence.
 

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine (above left and below), at Cathedral Street between Charlotte and St. George streets, is an important icon on several levels. The congregation, established in 1565, is the oldest Christian congregation in the United States. The church building itself, whose construction took four years (1793-97), is the oldest church in Florida. It is not surprising, then, that a lot of Catholic couples seek to be married there. Indeed, the day we were there, we were fortunate to run into the same newly married couple twice -- one to see them exiting the church after the ceremony (second photo below). A good chunk of time later, while we were on the trolley heading back to our car, we the wedding party being dropped off in a van outside the Castillo de San Marcos, presumably for a picture session (third and fourth photos below). In a moving trolley, I felt fortunate to get the pictures I did at the fort. 

Above and below: A wedding party making a post-nuptials stop at the historic Castillo de San Marcos to get some photographs. 

Above and next five below: More scenes from the St. George Street merchants' district.

The Bridge of Lions (above) over the Matanzas River is so dubbed because of the sculpted ornamental lions perched on pedestals at the ends of the bridge. One of the lion sculptures is shown below.

St. Augustine is not without its traditional tourist traps. Gator Bob's Trading Post (above) is on the shops-laden grounds where the tour trolleys start and end their routes, so the trolley terminal gets a lot of foot traffic. (As a trade-off for people who buy tickets for the trolley, there is a good amount of free parking available on nearby lots). Not too far away from the terminal are Potter's Wax Museum (first below) and Ripley's Believe It Or Not (second below). At the latter, one can find a replica of Michelangelo's sculpture of King David (third below), which I present from this unusual angle only because I made the photo (again) from a moving trolley. 

Above: In the middle of the parking lot of the Howard Johnson Motel on San Marcos Avenue stands Old Senator, an oak tree believed to be at least 600 years old. There is no fee to see it; the trolley's route takes riders past it. 

Above: The shiny gold Great Cross makes it easy to find Nombre de Dios, the well-preserved site of an early Spanish Catholic mission, whose origin can be traced to 1565. The stainless steel cross is 208 feet tall. The archdiocese of St. Augustine now owns the property, which includes a church and shrine to Our Lady of La Leche. I wasn't able to tour the site; this photo was taken from the moving trolley. 

A look inside the city's visitor information center along San Marcos Avenue (above), and a pond (below) behind the center.

Above: The Lightner Museum, 75 King St., across from the main entrance to Flagler College. The museum holds antiques, mostly American Gilded Age pieces, in what was the former Hotel Alcazar, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. The hotel was building by Henry Flagler in 1887 to appeal to wealthy tourists who traveled on his railroad, the Florida East Coast Railway. The hotel had a steam room, massage parlor, sulfur baths, gymnasium, a three-story ballroom, and the world's largest indoor swimming pool. After years as an elegant winter resort for wealthy patrons, the hotel closed in 1932.

Coming up next: Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine

Previously in FLORIDA: 

Ormond Beach

Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse