Saturday, March 16, 2024
I'm up early enough to be well out of everyone else's way! Ole appears first and he's headed for Publix for essentials like water and sunscreen. Gradually every one else appears and we pile into the car to park and walk to breakfast at the Kookaburra - iced coffee, iced chai (that's mine) and assorted breakfast Aussie pies! They have eggs and cheese and maybe bacon or sausage or rosemary. We take them across the street to eat in the plaza, explore there a bit and check out the Lightner Museum, across the plaza from Flagler College. We also discover the Andrew Young Crossing that commemorates the walk that he lead from Lincolnville to the plaza during the Civil Rights Movement during 1964. We are booked on the eleven o'clock free walking tour and Jenny checks us in and we get our magic stickers. That's also how we learn there are free bathrooms at the Museum!
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| Florida Man ready for a day in the sun. |
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| Kookaburra Coffee |
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| The Plaza |
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| Flagler College, previously the Ponce de Leon Hotel |
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| Courtyard of the Lightner Museum |
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| You'll have to check with Jenny to see the final result! |
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| Braille |
We return to the tour office and join our guide and fellow tour-takers. Our first stop is the area in front of the Lightner Museum with the statue of Don Pedro Menéndez De Aviles, who is the founder of St. Augustine. We learn so much about the history of the city and the way that Spain and England swapped ownership back and forth over the centuries, generally not as anything to really do with St. Augustine. The local river. was called the river of the dancing dolphins by the local inhabitants; but when it was filled with dead soldiers it became the Matanzas, or "massacre"! During the civil war, the fort was held by a single Yankee soldier and when the Confederates attacked he just asked for a receipt and turned over the keys! But St. Augustine wasn't actively on either side.
While Menéndez was the founder of St. Augustine, Henry Flagler was the founder of tourism here. and all the way down to the Keys. He was an ultra-rich industrialist (founder of Standard Oil with John d. Rockefeller) whose wife became ill, so her doctors told her to move to somewhere with a better climate. As a result, they moved to Jacksonville and Flagler began coming down to St. Augustine, falling in love the people and the area. He built a railroad line down to the city and then built the super luxurious Ponce de Leon Hotel, now Flagler College. The hotel had electricity three years before the White House! and a bathroom in every room, of which there were 450! And the ball room had Louis Tiffany windows. It's now the dormitory's dining room.
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That's the hotel that went bust in the background. It was named the Santa Monica,
after St. Augustine's mother. |
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| Used to be Woolworth's |
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| Aviles Street, the oldest street in the country. |
But there wasn't much to do, so he build what is now the Lightner Museum right across the Plaza. It had an indoor swimming pool and bowling alleys and musical venues and even had a place in the back where you could learn to ride a penny-farthing! And because the roads were shell and sand and hard to ride on, he paved all the roads between and around the two buildings. His friend built a hotel also facing the Plaza, but it wasn't as opulent and the rooms were much cheaper. No one wanted to be seen living in "second class" accommodations so his friend built an elevated walkway between the hotel and the recreation building so people could sneak across and mingle with the one-percenters. But the hotel when bust after a year and Flagler bought that one, too!
Eventually Flagler would extend his rail line and build more and more beautiful hotels all the way down to Miami. He even built a railroad all the way to Key West, but some of it was wiped out in a hurricane.
We walk down to the Plaza and learn that the Spanish had specific requirements for the Plaza in every Spanish city. The governor's house, seat of government, had to face the Plaza, as did the church. The church had to be located such that it was the first thing sailors saw when they entered the harbor and the last thing they saw when they left. There also had to be main road that extended out from the Plaza and there had to be a market place. And, of course, a place for public executions, so the populace would know they were protected from pirates and other criminals. The method of execution was a slow and drawn out garroting. It could take hours for the condemned man to die, while the governor and citizens looked on.
We learn the story of the only pirate to not die by garroting. He was in throes of death when the garrote rope broke and he fell forward. He had been praying the rosary and the priest in attendance said it was a miracle and he should be freed. At first the governor wasn't having it, but the priest was insistent and, as the church was more powerful than the government, Ransom was allowed to live but had to be a slave to the government. He was an engineer and linguist, so he was valuable and eventually worked his way out of slavery to become a free man and an important part of the community.
Someone asked about civil rights and we learn that one of the Woolworth's sit-ins happened right here. When the four young men were arrested, MLK came to town and attempted to swim in the municipal swimming pool. There were photos of the manager of the pool pouring acid into the pool and those photos were seen nationwide. They were said to be a key factor in the passage of the Civil Rights Act!
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| Time to re-apply the sunscreen! |
After the tour we go exploring and walk down (and across!) the oldest street in the country, passing Our Lady of Remedies, which was adjacent to the hospital, and happen upon Peace Pies, the ice cream sandwich with a layer of pie filling. We're all still pretty full from breakfast (I still have half of my pie!) but who can resist? Stu and Amanda split one and Ole, Jenny, and I share a caramel toffee coffee. OMG
We see a sign for Jensen Pottery and both parts of that name speak to me, so we go inside. Oh My! Ken Jensen makes guitars with ceramic bodies! And cigar-box guitars, And ceramic horns! And also beautiful more traditional pottery. There are also fabric paintings (quilts) and graphics. Mr. Jensen invites Ole to try one of the guitars and he demonstrates one of the horns, which are called "puppies" (Don't ask!)
We stop to re-apply sunscreen (Florida kids know the value of sunscreen) before going across to the harbor to see Diego's ship. I was wrong yesterday, it's not the cheesy black pirate-looking ship. It's the gorgeous one we took photos of yesterday and is an exact replica of the original Trinidad, except for the fibreglass hull underneath the beautiful wooden facade. The Trinidad was the flagship of the famous navigator Ferdinand Magellan, who circumnavigated the globe 500 years ago. It is funded by the Foundation NAO Victoria, a 501c3 non-profit. We are so lucky that it happens to be in port for a couple of months so that people can tour it. Diego hooks us up with tickets, saving us a bundle, as his current assignment is ticket seller! We spent about forty-five minutes being awed and amazed by both the construction and living conditions. It is so hard to imagine being in the crow's nest in high seas with the waves washing over the sides and the sails dipping almost down into the sea. You have to go down the stairs backward, which is a little disconcerting; but I survive!
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| The captain's quarters |
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| He had this beautiful window! |
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| Looks a little different from up here! |
We walk down to the fort and walk all the way around it, marveling at the coquina walls which could withstand cannon fire, frustrating pirates and opposing armies.
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| That's the fort |
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| Actually, it's the tenth fort! The first nine were destroyed either by fire or. pirates. |
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| The coquina, or fossiliferous limestone, absorbed the shock from the cannonballs! |
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| "The cannon family," Jenny |
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This explains how the cannonballs were heated before firing at the pirates in the oven
pictured above. |
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| Florida Man! |
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The moat wasn't filled with water. Instead it was filled with the city's livestock.
While the people were safe inside the fort, the animals were safe here! |
Onward to the City Gate Distillery for a free tasting and a not-so-free shopping spree! We sample not one or five but ten different spirits including such things as smoked maple whiskey, peanut butter whiskey, cookie dough whiskey, salted caramel whiskey and apple pie moonshine! We have tiny thimble-sized tasting cups and our guide/bartender tells us we will have had the equivalent of two shots when we're done. Oh, yeah; feels like more! If you buy six bottles you get a free insulated bag! And they'll hold on to it for you! We only get five but there's also a t-shirt and a pin and a magnet, so the bag is ours!
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| The Hyppo Ice Pops have won these trophies twice! |
There are more shops to explore on St. George Street, even though we've walked it several times!
Must have food! Barefoot Bill's looks like the answer for sandwiches and salads. Then some window shopping and a stop for Hyppo Ice Pops!
Everyone is ready for a break and it isn't far to the parking building so we collect our goodies from City Gate and go home for a bit of down time before our ghost tour at 8:15.
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| Can you see the face of Osceola? |
We're early enough to find a free parking place! Amazing! And we're still on time for our tour. The girls are looking for coffee, but the shop is closed. Sorry! But the tour is starting and our guide, Matthew is decked out in buckskin, complete with coonskin cap! This really is a walking tour and we begin at Flagler College where we learn that Flagler's wife had a live-in nurse and when the wife died, the nurse convinced Flagler that it would be practical for him to marry her so that there was someone to care for his children and he would have a companion at all the social events. Eventually she became bored andd turned to spiritualism, eventually believing that she was destined to be come the Tsarina of Russia, but that would require he to kill Flagler! She planned to stab him with her scissors when he came to check on her; butt instead she tried to kill her doctor! He had her committed! It is said that she haunts the girls in the dorm, screaming at them to get out! Flagler, himself also haunts the halls, but he just knocks on people's doors.
We move on to the Plaza and learn about the choking ghost and then on to Aviles street for the first cold case, where a lieutenant was set up in the dark of night and dragged himself to sweetheart's house, to die in her arms.
Finally we go to the fort where there are numerous stories and plenty of men met their ends. At the end of the tour we are shown the face of Osceola and told that, although he was buried with full military honors, he was missing his head because he doctor and good friend had stolen it to do experiments!
Some of us are still a bit peckish and our guide recommends the Bar Harbor Cheesecake Company. They are too full to seat us but we could get one to go. The guys are looking for ssomething more and as they are going to get the car, we try to order some grilled-cheese sandwiches from the Grilled Cheese Gallery. I'm hoping for the Queen Brie with bacon, French brie, raspberry puree and balsamic on sourr dough. Alas, none of the phone numbers work and they are either closed or too buy for us anyway. Jenny goes exploring and winds up at Mojo BBQ, which Ole had mentioned about half an hour ago. The bartender is a trip and first Amanda and I join Jenny and finally the guys arrive. What had started as a light snack has morphed into a full midnight super. It takes two big brown bags to carry everything and the 'tender requires us to open each and every container to make sure we have everything we ordered!
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| 14,000 steps!! |
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| The dining/family room after we cleaned up! |
We take it all into the house and spread out on the dining room table for huge, spicy onion rrings, burnt ends, Mojo salad, quesadilla, brunswick stew, mashed sweet potatoes, corn bread and six different sauces! I can only manage an onion ring and some sweet potatoes! Ah! But we did bring home one of the gourmet cheesecakes, the chocolate raspberry, and Stu expertly divides it into fifths. The little container is so cute! The cheesecake is on a little plastic plate and even has a little silver fork under the plate. Jenny is going to keep it for picnics because everything fits so well inside the container!
It's midnight and I've walked over 14,000 steps. I'm done!
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