I had a blast in St. Augustine, Florida last weekend! It was a girls’ weekend with two of my favorite people, Carrie and Debbie.

This church is one of several that Henry Flagler built.

St. Augustine is a fabulous town and oozing with history. It was founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles in 1565 making it the oldest permanent European settlement in North America.  (FYI, St. Augustine was founded 42 years before the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia and 55 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.) Course, the Indians were here first and in St. Augustine, it was the Timucuans.

In 1586, Sir Francis Drake (England) burned the town. In 1668, a pirate, Captain John Davis plundered the town. St. Augustine also survived attacks, first in 1702, by Governor James Moore of South Carolina, and in 1740 by General James Oglethorpe of Georgia. 

The Lightner Museum, formerly The Hotel Alcazar had an indoor swimming pool, Turkish baths, bowling alley, etc. Today, there is a cafe located in the swimming pool. This is also one of a handful of locations that are popular for weddings.

In 1821, a yellow fever epidemic brought much death to the city and later, the Seminole War of 1836 (those darn Indians) wreaked havoc on the economy.

After the Civil War, Henry Flagler, a rich oil tycoon (Standard Oil) came to the middle of the swamp and built a couple of hotels, the Alcazar and his masterpiece,  the Ponce de Leon.  Rich northerners rode Flagler’s train to St. Augustine for long lavish winter vacations in the temperate climate. Flagler also built a hospital, town hall and several churches and remains much beloved of the local citizenry.

Some rich families built winter homes or became permanet residents. The building that houses St. Augustine’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum was originally built as a winter home for millionaire William Warden in 1887. Warden had either 13 or 14 daughters (depending on which tour guide you believe) and had a handful of servants, too, so he needed a huge grandiose house.  “Castle Warden” later served as a fashionable hotel owned by Norton Baskin and his wife, Pulitzer prize-winning novelist, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling, Cross Creek and South Moon Under. Robert Ripley was a frequent visitor to the hotel and had commented on numerous occasions that Castle Warden would be an ideal location to showcase his collection of unbelievable curiosities and sometime in 1950 the building was sold to him and has been since then, the original permanent location of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum.

Aviles Street is the oldest street in North America.

So, here is our story. Debbie and I went to Carrie’s Thursday evening, and ate a wonderful dinner at Bella’s in Savannah with Carrie and her husband, Steve. We girls got up early Friday morning, headed south on Interstate 95 and arrived in St. Augustine three hours later. After checking into our hotel, we bought tour passes for Old Town Trolley tours (the green and orange trolleys).  Our passes would include a tour of St. Augustine, free admission to a museum and free rides all weekend to all the tour stops.

St. Augustine was surrounded by a wall. This was the gate to the city.

After a tour of the city, we jumped off the trolley and ate a leisurely outdoor lunch, followed by shopping and sightseeing in Old Town. After a trolley ride back to our hotel, and a short rest, we drove across the Mantanzas Bay to Zhanras on Anastasia Island where we had a splendid dinner of tapas. Our waiter wasn’t bad on the eyes, either.

On Saturday morning, we went to a little French bistro on Cathedral Street in Old Town and had a wonderful breakfast with fresh squeezed orange juice and omelets fromage.

This is the tallest free standing cross in North America. It overlooks the bay at the Mission de Nombre de Dios.

And, then the outlet malls! There are two! Premium Outlets and Prime Outlets. We shopped till we dropped. I got a pair of jeans, new meat thermometer, cutting boards, bras and underwear – all within budget. Carrie’s biggest purchase was her Le Creuset round roaster (expensive) and Debbie bought a new purse (expensive).

Back to the hotel to drop Debbie off who now had blisters on her feet and then, Care and I went to San Sebastian Winery on the trolley. San Sebastian makes some very nice wines with muscadine grapes. I am not a big sweet wine drinker, preferring cabernet sauvignon and other less sweet fare, but I do think San Sebastian’s sweet wines are the best. It was difficult toting almost two cases back to the hotel on the trolley, but we managed without spilling (or drinking) a drop.

Our waiter, Pablo, snapped this photo.

Dinner on Saturday was at a nice restaurant about a block from out hotel – We sat outside under a gazebo at the Raintree.  I had panko crusted Chilean Sea Bass. Yum! Carrie had a bouillabaisse and Debbie had the lobster tail.

There are so many things we didn’t do this trip, like tour the Fountain of Youth and Flagler College and Lightner Museum and Ripley’s and Villa Zorayda and the Old Jail or take the ghost tour, yada, yada.

My absolute favorite thing, though, was when we were walking the grounds at the Mission de Nombre de Dios. There were not many people there and the ones who were spoke in whispers – it seemed like such a wonderful place to reflect. Beautiful voices of a woman’s choir wafted through the air from the most beautiful little chapel located near the center of the grounds. It seemed irreverent to take a photo of the chapel right then, so  I planned on going back later, but never did.

We left St. Augustine early Sunday morning and I got home late Sunday afternoon.

Believe it or not!