St. Augustine

Our nation's oldest city - founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles in 1565 and of course home of the famous Fountain of Youth discovered by Ponce de Leon.  I believe the history here is some of the most interesting of any place I've ever visited!  So many of our nation's firsts are here - the oldest wooden school house, the site of the first Catholic mass ever said in America as well as the first Jail!

Upon entering the harbor via the St. Augustine inlet one of the first landmarks that you see is The Great Cross, which was a gift to the city.  It is believed to be the tallest in the country and it weighs 70 tons.  The cross marks the sight of the first mass.

The next piece of history you see is the fort named Castillo de San Marcos, which we were told has "never, ever been taken".

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay here.  We bought an Old Town trolley pass that was good for a week and we certainly got our money's worth.  We were able to get off and on as many times as we wanted and it also included unlimited trips aboard the trolley that goes out (hourly) to St. Augustine Beach, which is on Anastasia Island.  The island is connected to the mainland by the beautiful Bridge of Lions.

You can see one of the white marble lions in the last two pictures.  There is an identical one on the other side at the foot of the bridge.  These lions were a gift from Spain to the city on one of it's significant birthdays (can't remember which one!).

Henry Flagler, a man who had to leave home at the age of 14 to find work because his mother was so poor she could no longer afford to feed him became an extremely wealthy man and built most of the old churches and hotels in St. Augustine.  He, with one of the Rockafellas founded Standard Oil Co.  He also built the Florida East Coast Railway, which runs all the way to Key West.  One of his most beautiful hotels here was named the Ponce de Leon.  It is now the home of Flagler College.

Statue of Ponce de Leon, which is on the main plaza (middle of this picture).

Old Ponce de Leon hotel - now Flagler College.

Another hotel built by Flagler, which is now home of the Lightner Museum.

The oldest Jail.

Full moon rising over St. Augustine.

St. Augustine waterfront restaurants, shops, etc.

St. Augustine has numerous boats for taking tourists out on the water.  Here is a beautiful tall masted clipper ship.

We had a ring side seat (from our boat) for watching all of the boats and it was quite obvious that the most popular one was this pirate ship named the Black Raven!  Very entertaining to listen to all the singing of pirate songs, the aaarg's and all the saber rattling!  This smaller pirate ship would sneak up on the large one and to the surprise of the passengers aboard the large ship would start firing cannons at them!  It was quite a show and a lot of loud cannon fire echoing across the harbor every afternoon!