Historic Saint Augustine, Know Before You Go –

Saint Augustine is a compact town located in Northeast Florida just south of Jacksonville and about 1.5 hrs. south of the Florida/Ga Stateline. It is believed to be the oldest metropolis in the United States. It was first uncovered and claimed for Spain by Ponce de Leon in 1513 who named it La Florida , but matters 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 hours to travel from South Florida to Saint Augustine by using I-95, stopping 2 times. Once for a toilet crack and the up coming to get gasoline. The lodge the place I was keeping was just off the 95, simple to find. I stayed at the Good Keep Inn, a two story hotel with an ample sum of rooms and parking. It has a gym, a pool, sizzling tub, and laundry area, and serves up extremely very good breakfast possibilities that incorporates scrambled eggs, sausages, slice bread, bagel, make your own waffles, orange juice, milk, coffee, tea, fruits and cereal. It’s possible not the very best, but far better than a granola bar and a bottle of drinking water that we had been supplied at an additional lodge.

The lodge is close to the Saint Augustine Outlets and whilst it’s not in the downtown place it was not a quite lengthy generate. Even Although it wasn’t my to start with preference, I didn’t intellect it at all. I was basically more pleased with the choice  when I went into town and observed that parking at those inns seemed a little bit limited. That is certainly some thing to retain in mind when searching for somewhere to stay.

There are other lodges in the place like the Consolation Inn which is right future doorway, Top quality Inn, Purple Roof Inn, Getaway Inn and extra. You can also find gas stations and heaps of places to take in close by.

What to Anticipate

The Downtown spot is wherever most points of interest are. I came into city on a Friday afternoon, went to verify-in at the resort and then visited the Saint Augustine Shops. Just after traveling to the Stores I required to go to an attraction, but when I checked the attractions, most of them were being currently shut. By the way, most points of interest in Saint Augustine closes involving at 5:00 and 5:30 PM. I noticed just one, the Pirate and Treasure Museum, that was open until eventually 7:00 PM and made a decision I would go. 

After driving into the Downtown location the Pirate and Treasure Museum was no longer on my intellect. I decided I was heading to go to the Castillo de San Marcos countrywide Monument as an alternative for the reason that there was some thing so captivating about the complete scenery, with the blue waters of the Matanzas River in the backdrop. The Pirate and Treasure Museum was pretty much throughout the street but that was for an additional day.

I necessary to try and obtain someplace to park and I seen that the still left lane was starting off to again up as some people were trying to get into a nearby parking whole lot although other individuals have been in a line waiting to go above the Bridge of Lions which takes you to A1A. I arrived out of the line and went into the ideal lane in hopes I could locate somewhere to park. I finished up on a road that took me suitable into what I thought was the parking great deal of a hotel, but as I drove in I observed the parking areas all marked reserved. Later I understood I was at the back again of Flagler Faculty.

I parked for a bit and got out and took a couple of images since it had a pretty architectural structure. Following pulling out of the faculty, just across the road was a $10 parking lot. I right away pulled in and paid out the attendant, it was a great thing way too for the reason that it was starting up to fill up. There are several parking about, but you have to travel close to to find low cost parking. The parking closest to the major avenue, Avenida Menendez, are a lot more high-priced. You could be equipped to get some free of charge parking at some of the attractions with your ticket invest in, like Ripley’s Feel it or Not made available a 3 several hours parking go with the obtain of the entrance ticket. I was able to tour the attraction and afterwards depart the automobile there for a bit and came back again in time to choose off.

After parking, I walked a tiny strategies, not as well considerably as a result of the again streets and on to the most important but before acquiring there I couldn’t assistance but search about to see what was heading on people again streets. I quickly understand that St. George road is the place every thing was taking place. It is lined with stores, eateries, and entertainment. I was in a position to halt at Tedi’s Olde Tyme Ice Cream and purchase a pistachio cup. After leaving Tedi’s just on the side at the corner of Cuna and St. George there was a male who experienced snakes on display, $10 to hold or pose with a a person of them for a solitary particular person and $15 for a group. That wasn’t heading to be me, I am not a large enthusiast of snakes, so I variety of hurried pass there and went on to my desired destination.

When I came to the Castillo de San Marcos I was not able to go on the within for the reason that it was closed by that time, but I was however ready to tour the outside. I was ready to stroll all around it and observe the cannons that have been lined off in one space and browse articles or blog posts about its record. Even however it was not open at the time, it was even now a stunning spot to loosen up since the sunlight was however up and the breeze that was blowing in from the Matanzas River felt so excellent. You can sit on any of the seats onsite or on the pleasant and lush lawn. The only thing is that the garden is not experiencing the h2o so it might not have the identical effect as sitting down on the waterfront.

Issues To DO

There are numerous factors to do in Saint Augustine, irrespective of me pondering there may not have been a great deal to do there. I will not go into substantially aspects about them below mainly because I have an short article that listing matters to do in St. Augustine, you can click on below to uncover it, but I will go forward and list some of the destinations to take a look at/items to do

• Lightner Museum
• Ripley’s Feel it or Not
• Potter’s Wax Museum
• Castillo de San Marcos National Monument
• Alligator Farm
• The Torture Museum
• St Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum
• Fountain of Youth
• The Outdated Jail
• Saint Augustine retailers for some searching
• Do your very own self going for walks tour and admire the architecture of some sites like Flagler College and the church buildings
• Check out The Plaza de La Constitucion park

Receiving Around

Obtaining about city in St. Augustine isn’t difficult since most locations are shut by and effortless to get to with your have car or by Uber. If you transpire to get a lodge in or near downtown, it’s an straightforward wander mainly because everything is right there, except for the beach locations and alligator farm. Then there is also the trolley excursions.

There are two sorts of trollies in St. Augustine, there is the Old City Trolley Tours and Pink Train Excursions. The Old Town Trolley presents shuttles that picks you up from your lodge and normally takes you to the trolley depot, from there you can purchase your trolley tickets (as nicely as attraction tickets at a low cost) and get on to a trolley. You can pick to journey the trolley all working day about city or hop on and off as you would like. The Outdated Town Trolley tours sells one working day as very well as two working day tickets.

The Purple Practice Excursions is a component of Ripley’s Imagine it or Not and also features guided excursions all-around town enabling you to hop on and off all day. You will be capable to get the teach from the Ripley’s area. The Purple Practice Excursions delivers an all day hop on or off encounter as nicely as the Pink Teach Categorical encounter which is a just one hour guided tour that takes you to sure web pages.

There is an upside and a draw back to having the trollies. The upside is that you really do not have to fret about driving your very own motor vehicle to every single area and getting to get worried about parking or taking a Uber, and the motorists are quite experienced about the heritage of the city. The draw back in my feeling is, based on how considerably aside the stops are you can invest a ton of time on the trolley receiving to the up coming attraction. For example, I used virtually 2 hours on the trolley attempting to get to my previous attraction for the reason that of targeted visitors and also due to the fact it was the very last prevent, halt variety 22, only to come across out that the park was only about a 5 minute walk from the trolley depot.

Sites To Eat

Along the waterfront you can discover dining establishments such as Meehans’s Iris Pub and Seafood, River & Fort Cafe and Roof Top rated Lounge as very well as Harry’s Seafood Bar and Grille, just to title a several. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a prospect to dine at any of these on the waterfront, but there are a large amount of sites all around that you can obtain to eat. Together the back streets you can uncover little restaurants tucked absent, like the Raintree or Drake’s Bistro on San Marco Ave, and St. George Tavern on St. George Road. Then there is often rapidly food items eating places like Bojangles, which by the way experienced some delicious hen wings, Zaxby’s, Burger King, and additional, if you want to get it rapidly and go.

What I like the most about Saint Augustine is that even while it’s a compact metropolis, it holds a large history and It is good for solo travelers and even much more so for households. I would unquestionably visit once more and I have uncovered out that the finest time to take a look at is through Christmas when the complete metropolis is adorned with lights.