Retired Nomads: St. Augustine, Florida

October 13

We took a detour to the local post office to mail away our ballots for the mid-term elections. This church was close by and they look ready for Halloween. LOTS of pumpkins.

We had a second day on the Trolley, though we walked between most stops.

Old City Gates

St. George Street

Oldest Wooden School House in the U.S.A.

We started with the Castillo San Marcos. They put on a great demonstration of firing a cannon. It was all in Spanish and was quite a ceremony of the steps to fire the cannon. It is what they used for training new people.

Castillo de San Marcos

entry across the drawbridge

mysterious note carved into the wall in Spanish - too many letters worn off to tell what it says

Guard Rooms

While we waited Greg and I had fun with the dragonflies. Or they were having fun with us since they seemed to like to land on our hands. Mine started on my ring and then kept coming back to my little fingernail.

Palm Warbler

Plaza de Armas

After the demonstration we toured the rest of the fort. They had quite a few of the areas set up to look as they would have when it was in use. Much nicer than looking at empty rooms and just plaques explaining what the rooms were used for.

storage rooms

replica of British-era room (1763 - 1783) slept 4

The King of Spain Wants You - typical recruitment desk

It was lunch time, so we went to St. George street which is the main street of the Old Town. The Seafood Co. caught our eye and we were not disappointed. I had some of the meatiest and most tender shrimp I have ever eaten and Greg had the oysters and despite being huge he said they were tender and tasty.

St. Augustine Seafood Restaurant

shrimp basket

oyster basket

I thought dessert would be across the street at an ice cream shop that had some really fun looking sundaes on their sign. So, we marked that to come back later.

We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting the various churches and parks that we didn’t get to yesterday.

Huguenot Cemetery - Protestant burial ground between the years 1821 and 1884

Old City Gates

Santo Domingo Redoubt - The Defensive System of Colonial St. Augustine

Potter's Wax Museum was the First Established Wax Museum in America.

1886 Old Drugstore in the lobby of the Wax Museum

Tolomato Cemetery - Catholic Cemetery

Flagler Memorial Presbyterian Church

Flagler Mausoleum

the mirror is there so you can see the beautiful dome since you can't enter the mausoleum

Flagler's Tomb

Lectern Bible - 1886 the ornamentation is sterling silver making it weigh over 50 lbs

Flagler Memorial Presbyterian Church was built in 1889 by business tycoon and St. Augustine benefactor Henry Morrison Flagler and dedicated in honor of his daughter Jennie Louise Benedict, who died following complications from childbirth at sea the same year, hence the word Memorial. Upon Flagler's death in 1913 he was interred in a marble mausoleum within the church beside his daughter Jennie Louise and her infant Marjorie, as well as his first wife Mary Harkness Flagler.

Henry Flagler built the Grace Church in 1887, using the same builders and architects that he used to build the Ponce de Leon Hotel.

Grace United Methodist Church - wasn't open to tour

Ancient City Baptist Church

We walked to the next church stopping at the College and some parks.

a very welcoming college???

what a beautiful college

Government House & Plaza

Constitution Monument 1813 - first Spanish Constitution

Plaza de la Constitucion - oldest public space in America

Confederate War Memorial - 1879

Cathedral of St. Augustine

Before going to the last one we went back to the ice cream place, but on the way we passed a gelato shop that looked incredibly good and we said if the other place didn’t look good we’d go back. When we went into the place with the nice pictures of sundaes, the ice cream selections were grim. Almost everything was empty. So, back we went for gelato and it was extremely good. Italy good…..

St. George Street

We then grabbed the next trolley to The Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche. It has the huge cross that you have seen in some of the other photos.

Sears & Roebuck "Kit House"

Scott, Happy Pappy is for you! (not that you want or need "glowing balls") Yikes!

The Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche at Mission Nombre de Dios traces its origins to the founding of the city of St. Augustine in 1565. On September 8, 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed and proclaimed this site for Spain and the Church. Menéndez named this site Nombre de Dios, meaning Name of God. He put Father Lopez in charge of the mission, making him the first parish priest in St. Augustine.

It was on these grounds that Father Lopez celebrated the first parish Mass and began the work at America's first Mission.