The Beauty of St. Augustine

I'd say that today ranked pretty close to perfect.

The morning greeted us with a bright blue sky and Marty and I couldn't resist heading out for a quick walk prior to breakfast to capture some of the beauty.

After a scrumptious breakfast of Eggs Benedict served in a puff pastry, we headed out to explore the town with our friends, Howard and Jennifer.

Our first stop was the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, a fort constructed by the Spanish between 1672 and 1695.

The walls of this fort were built from coquina, which is a type of shell stone quarried from the island of St. Anastasia located across the bay.  Walking around town, we soon noticed that many of the buildings are built from this unique stone, which I had never heard of until today.

This history of the fort was quite interesting, and the occupation changed so many times that it was difficult to keep track.  Spain, England, Spain, the United States, the Confederate States of America, and finally the United States again.  But never once was the Castillo taken by force.  The change in occupation only came through military agreements.

We walked through room after room filled with explanations of the history of this unique place.  I'll just feature a couple of the highlights. 

Here you can see a typical casement where the soldiers would have slept.

There were various type of canons in the fort, and we learned that these canons were capable of shooting a distance of 3 1/2 miles.

We spent several hours exploring the fort and admiring the beautiful views.

Here you can see Jennifer, Marty and Howard checking out one of the cannons.

And, just look at how the water sparkles: picture perfect!

We then decided to walk a bit out of the Old town to the Mission Nombre De Dias and the Shrine of La Leche.

St. Augustine is America's oldest city being named such on Sept. 8, 1565 by Pedro Menendez de Aviles.   The Mission Nombre De Dias stands on the site where the Spaniard landed and proclaimed this site for Spain and the Catholic church.

This statue represents Father Francisco Lopez, the chaplain traveling with Menendez.

Walking through the grounds of the shrine we saw many interesting icons.

There was the rustic altar where it is said that Father Lopez immediately said Mass upon landing here.

There were beautiful carved motifs.

A shrine to Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Another to Our Lady of Guadalupe

 but what I found most interesting, was the Shrine to Our Lady of La Leche, the first ever to be dedicated to Our Blessed Mother in the United States.

It was founded in 1620 by Spaniards and the statue in the chapel features the Blessed Mother tenderly nursing the baby, Jesus.

Such simplistic beauty to be admired.

By this time, it was well into the afternoon, so we stopped for a quick bite to eat, then headed to the bay to venture out onto the El Galeon.

El Galeon is a replica similar to the ship that Don Pedro Menendez de Avilies sailed when he landed on this area and founded St. Augustine in 1565. 

Historians researched the specifics of the original ship sailed by Menendez, and they went about recreating one that is a close duplicate.

We were able to board the ship and walk through it.

Here you can see Howard and Marty checking out one of the anchors.

 which was pretty large, as you can see.

Everywhere we looked, there were ropes with some sort of purpose.

Peeking through some offered a gorgeous view:

Here you can see where the boat was steered.

And, while were were on the boat, we got a close up view of the drawbridge being raised for a sailboat to pass through.  Now, that was pretty cool!

By now it was early evening, and time to head back into St. Augustine. 

We had a lovely dinner with our friends, and some delightful conversation at our B&B before heading up to bed.

Speaking of which, I can't help but wonder just why we need all of that netting over our bed?

I'm just hoping it isn't there to keep something from falling on our heads as we sleep!