Day 5 - A visit to Florida's oldest city

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Originally uploaded by tcboos

Today we followed the coastline north and visited the historical city of St. Augustine. It was a leisurely drive along A1A, a two-lane road, and despite the few comments from the backseat, I was happy that I had chosen this route as the road literally is next to the shoreline.

It's still in its natural state so we saw the sand and surf of the Atlantic close enough to touch. The opposite side of the road had some mom and pop hotels and a few restaurants, but it was undeveloped compared to the high-rise condos on Clearwater beach that we are used to. It was the typical vacation drive with the children's noses in their electronic gadgets, grandma in the backseat commenting on that fact, and me as the driver telling them to look out the window at the scenic view.

We arrived in St. Augustine to find that the Bridge of Lions, the ornamental bridge leading into the nation's oldest city and guarded by two marble lions, was closed. Apparently, the bridge was being refurbished and so we crossed into the city on a temporary bridge. Our first stop was Castillo de San Marco, the Spanish fort built to protect Spain's outpost to the New World. It is what I remember most about my trips to St. Augustine to visit my Aunt and Uncle, and since it is also a historical place in our nation's history it fit my description of summer vacation places.

Touring the fort is inexpensive. The girls were free and I think it cost me $6.00 for myself. It is a self-guided tour complete with a map and a suggested route, which we, of course, did not follow as we had to hit the restrooms first and this threw us off course. Once I figured out where we were on the map I was able to make sense of every area.

The Castillo was built by Spain in 1672 to protect its claim of the New World. It took 23 years to build and was made from the local stone, coquina. The Castillo protected not only the settlement of St. Augustine but the sea route for treasure ships returning to Spain. During sieges, the 1200 people of the settlement would take shelter inside the Castillo. Under command by Spain, Great Britain and eventually the United States, the fort was never taken by military force.

We viewed a movie on the history of the Castillo and listened to the speech of a guide dressed as a Spanish soldier. After purchasing some items in the gift shop we left to eat at a local eatery called O'steens. It's a local hangout known for its fried shrimp and it is a favorite of our family. Shh...don't tell the tourists.

We consumed well over 100 shrimp, purchased T'shirts for Rusty and Tom who whined about missing that visit and headed out to drive around the city. We eventually stopped and toured Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, a place that I had seen numerous times and always wanted to visit.

Robert Ripley was a famous cartoonist in the first half of the 21st century. His cartoons, "Believe It Or Not" were based on stories of bizarre and unusual facts, and he traveled the globe in search of material.

The museum houses quite a bit of the artifacts that he brought back from his travels, a lot of them from China. There are many hands on items and several areas where you can explore freely. My favorite was the mirror that made me thin. Everyone else enjoyed the one way mirror that encouraged you to make certain faces, which I did, not knowing the rest of my group was laughing hysterically on the other side.

Ripley was certainly an odd character, and I enjoyed reading about him and the weird people and things he found for his cartoons. A worthwhile visit.

We left after the museum and drove back home the same way, enjoying the sun setting over the Atlantic. All in all a nice, educational and fun day.