St. Augustine...it's finally warm!

December 14 - 15: St. Augustine, FL

We are finally in Florida and finally it's warm! Yahooo! We were getting pretty tired of all the layers of coats, hats and gloves. This trip was supposed to be about being in warm weather during the winter. Once we got into Florida, things started improving quickly.

St. Augustine is a beautiful city...full of history and incredible French and Spanish architecture. We were especially lucky to be there so close to Christmas because the place was decorated to the hilt with Christmas lights. Fantastic! We took a ton of pics, some of which I wanted to share with you.

The anchorage just before the Bridge of Lions. They had a wicked 4 knot current there, so we opted to stay in the city marina.

The beautiful city marina.

Flagler College, (previously the Flagler hotel). Mr. Flagler developed the town into a tourist attraction years ago, when he built the first rail line from the northeast to Florida...and eventually to the Keys.

Another hotel, fashioned after the Flagler architecture style.

The Alcazar Hotel, across the street from the Flagler. He built this structure to house all the entertainment venues for his guests such as ballrooms, pool halls, a huge indoor swimming pool, etc. Today, it houses the Lightner museum of artifacts and the city hall.

The courtyard garden at the Alcazar. Breathtakingly beautiful.

Inside the Lightner museum.

This is the Castillio de San Marcos Fort, built in the 1500's by the Spanish, eventually taken over by the English, home to Indians for a while...it has quite a history.

Bill inside one of the sentry posts. Amazing to be standing in the same spot as so many troops from the past.

The interior courtyard of the fort. We were able to go in several of the rooms to see how the troops lived, stored their powder kegs, how they assembled the cannon balls and loaded cannons, etc. It was a fun step back in history.

Even the cannons were extremely ornate.

Had to include this pic of the Fountain of Youth as discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon. We got to drink some of the water, but didn't seem to make any difference. The site has an interesting story behind it. Turns out Juan was quite short at about 4'11" (and he was taller than the rest of his Spanish crew). When he landed in Florida, the Indians who lived in the area were quite large. The chief was 7' tall and 300 lbs. Juan figured the Indians looked so healthy that it must be the water. But it didn't really have any special properties. Unfortunately, the Europeans who came and settled in the area brought their nasty diseases with them and eventually killed off all the Indians. Talk about ruining a neighborhood!

There's so much more to St. Augustine, but I don't want to bore you with all the details. You just have to visit yourself someday...and try to do so during the holidays for a special treat.