Castillo de San Marcos
I planned to spend the better part of a day in St Augustine and planned to do the sightseeing with Jett. Well, that didn’t happen (for reasons that I will explain later), but I did get to make a short trip there this afternoon. Total sightseeing time: 60 minutes. Not enough, but enough to give me a glimpse of the town. Nice place. Very scenic.
The highlight of my 1-hour tour was the Castillo de San Marcos, a 16th century fortress built by the Spaniards. You can read all about it. There is a lot of history here.
In doing my genealogical research I was struck by how many Europeans actually came to America before the Pilgrims. The Spanish settled St Augustine by 1585, there were Dutch fur traders in the New York City area by the early 1600s, Jamestown VA was settled in 1607. Why did I have this idea that the Pilgrims were the first Europeans in America in 1620? They were Johnny-come-latelies: when they arrived in Massachusetts they encountered Indians who spoke English.
Anyway, St Augustine is one of those early settlements that the English history writers tried to forget.
It is a beautiful little town. The streets are narrow, which made it difficult to navigate in my dually, but I found a place to park for $2.50 per hour. After walking around the downtown a bit and taking some photos, I strolled along the harbor to the fortress. Watched a little film about its history, took some more photos there and walked back to the truck. On the way I bought a soft drink (peach/ginger – terrible) and caramel corn (actually caramel kettle corn – delicious) and headed home.
A beautiful town on a beautiful day.
Downtown street
Downtown park
Downtown building
Harbor
Fortress courtyard
Moat
On the parapet
Cannon