St. Augustine, FL - November 4 & 5

Pictures have finally been added :)


Our original plan was not to spend two days in St. Augustine, but after the first day we just had to go back to this very interesting and historical town.

We took the Trolley which gives you three days of On/Off privileges.  The different trolleys pass by each of their stops about every 15 minutes which is really good.  Each trolley's driver also gives a history about St Augustine as well as each historical spot as you pass them.  It is the same story but told by different people with a sense of humour which gives it a little diversity with each driver.

Juan Ponce de Leon landed here in 1513 supposedly looking for the Fountain of Youth which was supposed to be on Bimini - oops missed that by a bunch, "Fire the Navigator!!" :)  Oh well, he did find something which he thought was the Fountain of Youth.  Good old Ponce, he was a tall man - NOT!  Back then the way to measure a man was from the bottom of his shoes to the top of his hat, we people today think that he must have always worn a very tall hat as in real life he was only 4 foot eleven inches in height, a vertically challenged person by todays standards.

After riding the trolley for the full tour, oh we are so smart now ;-) we decided to walk down a small narrow street full of vendors and restaurants for a bite to eat.  Following lunch and a walk we are on the Trolley again in search of the St. Augustine Distillery Company. T
his is a small "craft" distillery which started up a few years ago in the renovated ice house from the early 1900's.  They are in the process of making Bourbon, Rum, Gin, and Vodka.  While the Gin and Vodka are currently being sold the rest are in barrels aging.  Very nice building and they give free tours of the distillery with free samples at the end.  We were particularly interested in the Gin which is made with some citrus such as orange and grapefruit - nice taste.

There are some old walls around town that are made up of a mortar mix that include se
a shells.  Some of these are completed with large shells such as oyster shells.  Evidently this was done as a defence to discourage people climbing the walls.  The shells are very sharp and death was common if you cut yourself on these walls due to the lack of antibiotics back then.  Smaller shells were also used in many areas on streets and building walls.

During the Trolley tour we passed by an Oak Tree that had a palm tree growing out of its main trunk. It is known as the "Lovers Tree", which legend has it that if you kiss your sweet heart under this tree you will be together forever, awe!

Another area was a small ¼ mile long street that the trees have grown over to make a beautiful canopy.  This street was named by the National Geographic Society as one of the top ten prettiest streets in the world.  We also passed an old Oak Tree named "The Senator" it has been tested and is over 640 years old!! There were some comments made about the name of this tree, its age and some relationships to the federal Government but I am not going there :).

We completed our first day of touring St. Augustine around 4:30 PM and it was time to head back to the Ti.  Long day and we were tired.

Our second day we wanted to focus on a small street called Aviles Street that was all cobblestone and filled with interesting shops and very old buildings.

It was then lunch time, we ate at O.C. White, a sma
ll "house type" restaurant in their courtyard.  It had a pergola that had been formed by "training" trees to form a canopy for the patrons to eat under during the heat of the day.  Neat idea.

It was time to visit St. Augustine's Fort, the Castillo de San Marcos which is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States.  The Castillo was built from a stone called coquina, Spanish for "small shells", made of ancient shells that have bonded together to form a type of stone similar to limestone. Workers were brought in from Havana, Cuba, to construct the fort in addition to Native American laborers. The coquina was quarried from the 'King's Quarry' on Anastasia Island in what is today Anastasia State Park across 

Matanzas Bay from the Castillo, and ferried across to the construction site. Construction began on October 2, 1672 and lasted twenty-three years, with completion in 1695.  This fort was not very large, a typical contingent of soldiers was about 70 including the officer. 


Back on the Trolley again and back to the truck, by this time we're getting to know the tour wording pretty good, I could imagine that the drivers would get pretty bored repeating the same speech every day, day after day after day!!

Tomorrow is off to Miami Everglades Park to visit Ron and Jacquie on Miami Beach.