ST. AUGUSTINE -- Many tourist destinations tout their newest
attractions,
but most people come here to see what's been around for a long time.
At the
same time, however, when my wife and I first visited
here almost two decades ago with small children, we found it was a family
destination that offered something for everyone.
St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the
continental United States. When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in
1620, the city already had a fort, a church, a hospital, a seminary, fish
markets and more than 100 houses and shops.
Seniors will be among the million or so visitors who each here come here to
find the old historic area is only about eight blocks square. It is easily
walkable.
If visitors
can't or don't want to walk, there are horse-drawn
carriage tours and sightseeing trains. Old Town Trolley Tours of St.
Augustine has 20 stops where passengers can get off and on at will, as many
times as they want. Tickets are good for three days.
Visitors can
buy various tickets to see some of the 85 historic
sties and attractions. One definitely worth a peek is St. Augustine's Oldest
House (the Gonzalez-Alvarez House) dating back to 1727.
One recent
addition to the historic homes is the Old St.
Augustine Village, where costumed guides take visitors through nine homes
and a country store depicting life in the 16th century.
Children or
grandchildren usually like the Oldest Wooden
Schoolhouse (especially if they think their own classrooms are modest).
This school dating back to 1763 shows an old classroom with life-sized
figures of professor and pupils, rare schoolbooks, and tools that used to be
common such as slates and slate pencils (talk about primitive).
St. Augustine
is a small town that has a variety of activities,
at least during the day, and its offerings to visitors have steadily
increased in the almost two decades I've been coming here.
Visitors can
even take in a winery without having to worry about
driving home. The San Sebastian Winery is only a few blocks from the
historic area. There are free daily winery tours and tasting hours. There's
also wheelchair access and an elevator.
If you're
with children too young to appreciate wine, you might
reward them with a dessert -- a visit to the Whetstone Chocolate
Factory
where they'll show you one chocolate is made. It's free.
When my wife
and I visited here long ago, we put at the top of
our list the coquina-stone Castillo de San Marcos. This dingy prison-like
castle with hard dirt floors was started in 1672 and took 23 years to
complete. Blood-soaked battles here involved the British, the French and the
Spanish.'
Our young children at that time were far more interested in Ripley's Believe
It Or Not!
So we compromised.
We went to both.
Other Ripley-like attractions children may prefer to historical homes
include the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, which has 2,700 gators and
crocodiles, as well as monkeys, exotic birds and giant tortoises. Not far
away is the Potter's Wax Museum, which has 160 famous figures including
Michael Jordan.
If you decide there's so much to do you want to spend a night or more here,
one of my own favorite hotels is the Casa Monica, in the heart of the
historic district.
Hotelier Richard Kessler, known for the unique qualities of his various
buildings, over two years spent $17 million to restore the old Henry Flagler
hotel built in 1888. The 137-room hotel known for its excellent service is
listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. It's the only
Four-Diamond AAA rated hotel in the area.
Even if you don't stay there, try the 95 Cordova Restaurant, which is
somewhat pricey but has won various awards as one of the best in the area.
If your taste is more towards B&B's, there are 28 of them here.
They routinely include ceiling fans, fine collections of antiques,
heart-of-pine wood floors, richly upholstered sofas and large, often
wrap-around porches where guests can relax in rocking chairs surrounded by
banana and bougainvillea, and brilliantly colored tropical plants.
Among my own
favorites are the St. Francis Inn (the city's
oldest B&B) and the Casablanca Inn, though it's hard to find negatives with
virtually all of them.
For restaurants, I often head to the second floor balcony of the AIA Ale
Works, where you can see traffic passing over the Bridge of Lions leisurely
moving sailboats in the Matanzas Bay. Try one of the beers from AIA's
on-site microbrewery. Any fish dish is excellent.
When I first started coming here, good restaurants were rare. But today, I
know people who come from as away as Orlando (about 100 miles) just for the
dining.
One of the reasons why can be found at the Lightner Museum, an eclecticcollection of 20,000 items ranging from Tiffany glass to oriental art.
The Café Alcazar is almost unnoticed behind the building that seems to be ona never-ending restoration. It's open only for lunch. White linen
tablecloths cover upwards of two-dozen small tables where gourmet dishes
that change daily might include Artichokes Giovanni, which include artichoke
hearts based with a crisp topping of seasoned breadcrumbs and other
ingredients.
Other
restaurants favored by locals include The Creekside
Dinery, which has a waterfront setting. Views of the saltwater marshes are a
highlight of another local favorite, the casual Salt Water Cowboy's located
in a turn-of-the-century fish camp.
Still another
popular place for locals is O'Steen's Restaurant,
which claims to have "St. Augustine's First Fried Shrimp." The restaurant
offers gargantuan portions for mostly fried food. It's so popular that
locals reluctant to wait for tables almost invariably order take-out.
A personal
favorite for me is far from gourmet, but it has its
share of nostalgia. It's The Jesterville Grille, which is a 1950s-style
diner. While waiting for your $3, ¼ pound hamburger, you can browse the
wood-floored St. Augustine Toy Company, which sells some of the most unusual
items you'll find anywhere. The last time there, I bought a non-lethal toy
potato pistol.
There's not a
lot to recommend St. Augustine's nightlife. Most
attractions are closed. Only a handful of taverns are open in the historic
area.
But there are
some places to hang out after hours, such as
Scarlett O'Hara's, a popular place for young people particularly who come
here for the Southern BBQ and the oysters by the bucket.
Daytona Beach, about an hour away, has a lot more entertainment, but similar
to that city, there are areas you can drive on the beach -- a
12-milestretch for a $5 fee, one way.
Other things
to do in St. Augustine include upwards of a halfdozen ghost-related walks, haunted boat trips and other things that go bump
in the night.
For golfers,
what they call world-class links are available at
the World Golf Village, only eight miles away. Jack Nicklaus and Arnold
Palmer designed the courses.
For shoppers,
there is the St. Augustine Outlet Center, which
has 90 well-known brand stores. It's across the street from the Belz Factory
Outlet World, where there's another 50 discount stores.
If you go
during warm weather, you can't help but notice that
the area has something like 43 miles of beachfront. The famous "Beach
Doctor," Stephen Leatherman, does not rate these beaches among Florida's
best, but they're certainly good enough for a visit.
Perhaps the
best time to come, however, is at Christmas, when
the city celebrates the Night of Lights. From Thanksgiving till the end of
January, the city glitters with a thousand lights that help even more to
illuminate the rich history of St. Augustine.
For more information, try WWW. VisitOldCity.com, or call1-800 OLD-CITY
(653-2489)
