Historic Saint Augustine, Know Before You Go –

Saint Augustine is a smaller city found in Northeast Florida just south of Jacksonville and about 1.5 hrs. south of the Florida/Ga Stateline. It is thought to be the oldest town in the United States. It was initially found out and claimed for Spain by Ponce de Leon in 1513 who named it La Florida , but items did not do the job out for Ponce de Leon as he planned. It was later rediscovered and renamed St. Augustine, by Juan Mendez Aviles in 1565.

It took me about 5 hrs to generate from South Florida to Saint Augustine by using I-95, halting twice. When for a lavatory crack and the future to get fuel. The hotel where by I was remaining was just off the 95, quick to discover. I stayed at the Smart Remain Inn, a two story hotel with an adequate volume of rooms and parking. It has a health club, a pool, incredibly hot tub, and laundry place, and serves up quite good breakfast possibilities that involves scrambled eggs, sausages, slice bread, bagel, make your possess waffles, orange juice, milk, coffee, tea, fruits and cereal. Maybe not the very best, but much better than a granola bar and a bottle of water that we were offered at yet another lodge.

The hotel is shut to the Saint Augustine Stores and though it is not in the downtown space it was not a extremely extensive generate. Even Even though it wasn’t my initially choice, I did not thoughts it at all. I was essentially additional happy with the choice  when I went into city and observed that parking at these lodges appeared a little bit tight. That is surely one thing to continue to keep in mind when looking for someplace to continue to be.

There are other lodges in the location like the Ease and comfort Inn which is suitable next door, Excellent Inn, Pink Roof Inn, Holiday getaway Inn and far more. You can also obtain gasoline stations and plenty of destinations to take in close by.

What to Expect

The Downtown area is where most points of interest are. I arrived into town on a Friday afternoon, went to check-in at the lodge and then visited the Saint Augustine Outlets. Immediately after checking out the Outlets I wanted to go to an attraction, but when I checked the sights, most of them were previously closed. By the way, most points of interest in Saint Augustine closes between at 5:00 and 5:30 PM. I saw a person, the Pirate and Treasure Museum, that was open till 7:00 PM and determined I would go. 

Soon after driving into the Downtown location the Pirate and Treasure Museum was no more time on my brain. I determined I was likely to go to the Castillo de San Marcos national Monument rather mainly because there was a little something so fascinating about the entire scenery, with the blue waters of the Matanzas River in the backdrop. The Pirate and Treasure Museum was basically throughout the road but that was for another day.

I required to consider and obtain somewhere to park and I observed that the still left lane was starting off to back up as some folks had been attempting to get into a close by parking lot although many others have been in a line waiting to go over the Bridge of Lions which normally takes you to A1A. I arrived out of the line and went into the correct lane in hopes I could come across someplace to park. I ended up on a street that took me ideal into what I imagined was the parking whole lot of a resort, but as I drove in I seen the parking areas all marked reserved. Later on I understood I was at the again of Flagler University.

I parked for a little bit and obtained out and took a several shots for the reason that it experienced a beautiful architectural structure. Right after pulling out of the college, just throughout the road was a $10 parking good deal. I instantly pulled in and compensated the attendant, it was a excellent factor too since it was setting up to fill up. There are a lot of parking all around, but you have to travel all over to locate low-cost parking. The parking closest to the main avenue, Avenida Menendez, are far more highly-priced. You could be capable to get some totally free parking at some of the attractions with your ticket order, like Ripley’s Think it or Not presented a 3 hours parking go with the obtain of the entrance ticket. I was ready to tour the attraction and afterwards depart the auto there for a bit and came back again in time to get off.

Immediately after parking, I walked a minimal techniques, not way too significantly as a result of the back again streets and on to the major but right before having there I couldn’t assist but seem around to see what was heading on these back streets. I quickly recognize that St. George avenue is exactly where anything was occurring. It is lined with retailers, eateries, and amusement. I was capable to stop at Tedi’s Olde Tyme Ice Cream and invest in a pistachio cup. Following leaving Tedi’s just on the side at the corner of Cuna and St. George there was a guy who had snakes on display, $10 to maintain or pose with a one particular of them for a one human being and $15 for a group. That wasn’t likely to be me, I am not a significant fan of snakes, so I kind of hurried move there and went on to my desired destination.

When I came to the Castillo de San Marcos I was not equipped to go on the inside of mainly because it was shut by that time, but I was still ready to tour the outside. I was able to stroll around it and notice the cannons that were lined off in 1 space and browse posts about its history. Even though it was not open up at the time, it was nonetheless a wonderful location to loosen up because the sun was nonetheless up and the breeze that was blowing in from the Matanzas River felt so great. You can sit on any of the seats onsite or on the awesome and lush garden. The only detail is that the garden is not struggling with the drinking water so it may perhaps not have the identical result as sitting down on the waterfront.

Matters To DO

There are numerous matters to do in Saint Augustine, despite me contemplating there could not have been a whole lot to do there. I will not go into much aspects about them in this article because I have an posting that listing items to do in St. Augustine, you can click in this article to discover it, but I will go ahead and record some of the areas to pay a visit to/issues to do

• Lightner Museum
• Ripley’s Imagine it or Not
• Potter’s Wax Museum
• Castillo de San Marcos Nationwide Monument
• Alligator Farm
• The Torture Museum
• St Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum
• Fountain of Youth
• The Previous Jail
• Saint Augustine shops for some purchasing
• Do your possess self going for walks tour and admire the architecture of some places like Flagler College or university and the churches
• Check out The Plaza de La Constitucion park

Receiving All around

Acquiring close to town in St. Augustine isn’t challenging simply because most areas are close by and uncomplicated to get to with your personal car or truck or by Uber. If you transpire to get a resort in or near downtown, it’s an straightforward wander since almost everything is proper there, other than for the beach locations and alligator farm. Then there is also the trolley tours.

There are two sorts of trollies in St. Augustine, there is the Previous Town Trolley Tours and Crimson Prepare Tours. The Outdated City Trolley presents shuttles that picks you up from your hotel and normally takes you to the trolley depot, from there you can purchase your trolley tickets (as effectively as attraction tickets at a low cost) and get on to a trolley. You can choose to journey the trolley all day all around city or hop on and off as you desire. The Aged Town Trolley excursions sells one working day as nicely as two day tickets.

The Crimson Teach Tours is a section of Ripley’s Believe it or Not and also gives guided tours around town permitting you to hop on and off all day. You will be able to get the train from the Ripley’s locale. The Purple Train Excursions offers an all day hop on or off knowledge as perfectly as the Pink Prepare Convey encounter which is a a person hour guided tour that normally takes you to specified sites.

There is an upside and a downside to taking the trollies. The upside is that you really do not have to get worried about driving your personal car to every site and possessing to fret about parking or using a Uber, and the motorists are extremely proficient about the history of the metropolis. The draw back in my opinion is, relying on how significantly apart the stops are you can shell out a ton of time on the trolley finding to the future attraction. For instance, I spent nearly 2 hrs on the trolley hoping to get to my previous attraction since of traffic and also for the reason that it was the final quit, cease variety 22, only to come across out that the park was only about a 5 moment wander from the trolley depot.

Places To Take in

Together the waterfront you can locate restaurants these types of as Meehans’s Iris Pub and Seafood, River & Fort Cafe and Roof Prime Lounge as very well as Harry’s Seafood Bar and Grille, just to identify a couple of. Regrettably, I didn’t get a opportunity to dine at any of those on the waterfront, but there are a good deal of places around that you can discover to try to eat. Together the again streets you can obtain small places to eat tucked away, like the Raintree or Drake’s Bistro on San Marco Ave, and St. George Tavern on St. George Avenue. Then there is always fast food dining establishments like Bojangles, which by the way experienced some delicious hen wings, Zaxby’s, Burger King, and more, if you want to get it swiftly and go.

What I like the most about Saint Augustine is that even even though it’s a modest city, it retains a big heritage and It is fantastic for solo tourists and even more so for people. I would absolutely visit once more and I have observed out that the best time to visit is through Christmas when the entire town is adorned with lights.