St. Augustine and Savannah, April 2008
As with our previous travel blogs, you can click the pictures on these pages to go to a larger version. If you just want to see the pictures, click here and here. Otherwise, here is our story:
As we be both prepared for graduation we decided to take a small trip to celebrate. After much discussion amongst such things as going on a cruise, going to Puerto Rico again or finding someplace new to go, we settled on the latter.
Tuesday 04.22.08:
The Drive
Well, decided to go to Tina Tapas in Channelside last night, and catch "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", so we ended up getting home later that expected and still had to pack. This in turn meant we would be getting up later, would catch more traffic etc. Pleasantly, traffic from Brandon to Orlando wasn't bad at all, and even considering Orlando traffic at 9:30, still wasn't too bad. We stopped for breakfast at a Dunkin Donuts just west of Kissimmee for coffee and a bagel.
Upon arrival in St. Augustine I of course got pretty mad about the traffic situation and the fact that we really hadn't decided what we were going to do first. Of course I got upset, said I hated the city and was ready to leave (this always happens when I don't have a "destination" programmed in.)
St. Augustine:
This is the oldest surviving city in the United States. While other cities had been established prior to the settlement of St. Augustine in 1565 by the Spanish, it is the only city that survived from it's time.
St. Augustine Lighthouse:
Our first stop was at the St. Augustine Lighthouse, the current tower which was constructed in 1874. It is believed however that there has been a watchtower or beacon at this location since the early 1600's. You can learn more about it at the link above. Ana and I climbed the 219 steps to the top and were rewarded with some great views of St. Augustine and the Atlantic ocean.
From Left to Right: Lighthouse (as viewed from the Keeper's house), the oil can used to carry the oil to the top, James (with the Atlantic behind him)
Ana with the Atlantic behind her, the gear drive that rotates the lenses
Close-up of the moving lens, the 1000 watt light bulbs powering the light
Looking up from the bottom of the lighthouse.
From the lighthouse we drove back over the temporary "Bridge of Lions" and parked at the Castillo De San Marcos.
We never did get a chance to go in but you can see the Spanish influence on both this fort and the one in San Juan, Puerto Rico, especially the use of Guerite's (the overlooks):
The fort on the left is Castillo De San Marcos in St. Augustine, the one on the right is Fort San Cristobal in San Juan, Puerto Rico:
From here we walked over to St. George's Street, and walked
through the Tourist Trap, er I mean "historic area." While
these shops for the most part do have trinkets and art that you wouldn't
normally find elsewhere, there was still enough tourist type commerce to make
you wonder if the folks from the Orlando tourism board had any hand in it.
The first piece of history is the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the United States. I do find it interesting that almost everything old had to have some kind of disclaimer, so I can't say if this is the oldest school house in the US, or just the oldest "wooden" one. Who knows. Who cares :) No one apparently knows when exactly it was built, but it did first show up on tax records in 1716. I'd say a wooden building surviving hurricanes in Florida for almost 300 years deserves some respect.
Here it is anyways:
At this point we started to get hungry and began looking around for food.
Lunch: The Bunnery
Located on St. Georges street, it looked pretty appealing. Their cookies (especially their chocolate chip and pecan shortbread) were out of this world. Ana had a salad that turned out to be fairly flavorful and fresh, but I ended up with their "French Press" which was a croissant that contained ham, provolone and supposedly a dill flavored mayo. To be kind I will just call it awful. I did also enjoy a cherry limeade that was made fresh that was terrific.
After lunch we strolled in and out of a few shops, then got back in the car to go for a drive. We headed over to Villano Beach, a quite stretch of land with little traffic, and a 55mph speed limit most of the way. The air was a pleasant 72F and the humidity was quite low considering our proximity to the water.
We stopped at the Guana River State Park overlook and took a few pictures:
From Left to Right (Perspective shot of A1A, James and Ana)
I am not sure what kind of flowers these are, but they were beautiful and were growing all over the berm:
At this point we decided to head back towards the mainland. We stopped at our next location:
San Sebastian Winery. They offer a free tour and wine tasting every day, and we took them up on it. The tour was fairly well run, and gave you a behind the scenes look at how a modern winery functions. While Florida wines are typically not found on the menu, there are a few good ones out there. Sadly, the wines at San Sebastian were not to Ana or my liking, and we left somewhat disappointed, as we had hopped to pick up a few bottles for future consumption.
At this point we headed to our hotel to get settled for a bit. We stayed at the Hilton Historic St. Augustine. This hotel and the staff were amazing, which really helped me set aside the fear of valet parking the Lexus. This hotel is located on Avenida Menendez, directly opposite the Intercoastal waterway, and within viewing distance of the Bridge of Lions.
For dinner we went to Pizzalley's Chianti Room, which was pretty good. I had their Godfather Pizza, the antipasta and two great glasses of Ruffino Chianti. Ana had their Chicken Marsala which she said was pretty terrific as well. Surely not pizza like you'd get in NYC, but it was good for what it was.
From here we decided to get some desert. We went to a place called Hidalgo's. Ana had a Gelato cone, and I had a peice of Red Velvet cake. Sadly the cake wasn't that great. I ordered a hot chocolate to go (it was dark, in the 50's and very windy) as we were headed over to our next adventure:
A Ghostly Experience! We went on a well run ghost tour that took us to several spots throughout St. Augustine's Historic District and our tour guides Arliss and Pete did a great job telling us many ghost stories. While their stories seemed more for entertainment value than for actual stories, it was still a great time. For those that don't believe in ghosts, they also provided some pretty spectacular pictures that had been taken over the last few years. Spooky for sure!
At this point we decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel.