Day after Christmas, we drove up to St.Augustine, which, according to the tram guides we encountered, is most fabulous, famous, highest rated place in the United States. In fact, they expressed shock and dismay that it had not already been declared the nation's capitol, despite the fact that it has the oldest masonry fort in the US AND the original Ripley's Believe it...or Not! Frankly, we were as shocked as they were, as we rode the tram along the street which the driver assured us was rated in the top 10 most beautiful streets in America by National Geographic. Since, you know, National Geographic is always coming out with top 10 lists.
There are apparently three competing tram companies in the touristy area of St. Augustine (Ripley's runs one of them). We parked at the "Old Jail" gift shop and boarded one of them, and a small tractor pulling cars of seats (think Disneyland parking trolleys), pulled up and we piled on. The guy driving the tram narrates the tour while driving since there's so little traffic in the historic downtown and because Florida has such conscientious and safe drivers:
If you look left...uhh.....come on...come on.....you can see the third oldest house in.....dammit turn already...... America, which was also ranked the most historic by National Geographic...aannnd we're gonna wait here awhile while someone learns to parallel park......and was constructed in.......man! nearly got me!....HEY SAME TO YOU!And so on and so on. It was fortunately, a hop on, hop off bus, so we hopped off because our idea of seeing a place is more than just riding the tourist tram.
We walked through the historic Georges street, which was entirely reconstructions, except for the content of the buildings, which consisted largely of bars, restaurants, and novelty tee shirt stores, just like the Spanish colonial settlers had.
We wandered over to Flagler college, ("One of the best private universities in the US!") which used to be a grand hotel, built over a hundred years ago. Architecturally, its quite interesting.
Flagler was a seriously wealthy rounder (one of the founding partners of Standard Oil) who decided to try his hand at hospitality, and he wanted to turn this little seaside town in Florida into the "Newport of the South." So he bought a big plot of land and about a hundred million dollars and gave the design to two architects fresh out of school. I think this was pure genius- if only there were other patrons of the arts who would learn from this wise and sagacious decision, and hire more freshly graduated architects, who have their eyes unclouded from the harshness and grit of the wearing road of professional practice.
The place though, is seriously cool. It was made from board-formed concrete using new processes from the time, and was fully wired for electricity and hot and cold running water in the guestrooms, which, for 1888, was kind of like having wifi in 2000. Flagler also hired a young decorative glass maker to do the window glazings. So now the dining hall has something like 1.3 million dollars in original Tiffany glass, plus the dozen or so chandeliers spread through the hotel.
After the hotel tour, we walked over to the fort. (By the way, this was apparently the busiest day of the year for tourists for St.Augustine, and the city was just packed.) The fort was very interesting- low, stony, built for an age of siege and artillery. We wandered around inside for awhile, watched the firing of the cannon, shuffled through some exhibits and called it a day. We ended up hopping on the tram where we got off, and then rode it around the historic city while waiting for it to return to the "old jail" tourist center. Turned out to be a good deal. Tickets were $20, but parking in the historic city would have been $10 anyway.
Tay Urbanspooned a place for us to eat outside of St.Augustine- a local place called Ned's (?) which kind of looked like the place that would serve limp fish and chips, but actually had a delicious and sophisticated menu. I got the fried trigger (fish) with linguine and vegetables, and it was excellent. Tay and I split Key lime pie for dessert ( creme brulee and tiramisu were also on the menu) since that was one thing he'd been hunting for awhile while in Florida.
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