Randy has done so good picking restaurants that we let him pick for breakfast. We went to the Village Inn - excellent! Then we got on the sight-seeing trolley. There are over 20 stops on the route; we got on at the Old Jail. We didn't really find the jail because we were busy in the gift shop. When we did board the trolley, our guide was cheerful and well-informed. We learned a bit about Father Francisco Lopez, who accompanied Captain Menendez on his trip to Florida. There is a huge cross located at the spot where Father Lopez landed and prayed. Menendez was something else, though. He had a fondness for killing every non-Catholic that does his reputation no good at all.
On to other stuff: two of the pillars of the old city gates from 1808 are still standing. At one point the growing city wanted to demolish them but a ladies' group stopped that. Good thing - they are lovely.
We learned about William Loring, who joined the Florida militia at age 14. And Live Oaks are called "live" because they never lose their leaves. There is a big one named "Old Senator" because it's shady, crooked, and stands around doing nothing. And there are laws against buildings higher than 35 ft, so Hilton hotel built their local hotel buy joining several buildings together, instead of building up.
We found St George's street and that was pretty much the end of trolley riding. This is a walking street filled with places to shop and places to eat. We did both.
I'm usually not a great pretzel fan, but Ben's had wonderful pretzels!
We stopped at church - I forgot which one. But they had beautiful stained glass windows that focused on St. Augustine.
Then it was time to see the fort, aka Castillo de San Marcos. It's often called a fort but it was really a castle, to protect the royal governor. A docent gave a demo/talk about the armour and weapons that soldiers of the period would have used. Among other things, he said that they wore over 70 pounds of armour - yikes! It took musketeers time to reload, so musketeers were issued a swordsman as a bodyguard. And the musketeers had to return the gun. If you died and it was lost, your family had to pay for it.
According to this guy, lots of lacey clothes, long curly hair and perfume were the marks of a good warrior. They had survived enough battles to indulge in such things (and probably take some spoils of war), instead of having the bare minimum.
Soldiers would drill 2 days a week but soldiering usually wasn't a full-time job, so they had other jobs in town. When fighting, their clothing was often their regular street clothing, so they would wear a red sash on their sleeve to mark them as Spanish, and hopefully avoid friendly fire.
The fort is made from coquina blocks (like the city gates). This stuff was the main building material for anything that the folks wanted to last a long time. It's basically naturally packed tiny shells, tough enough to be quarried and strong enough to withstand an attack by James Moore in 1702. Cannon balls either bounded off or sunk into it a few inches.
In 1740 General Oglethorpe attacked, with the same results. At night the guys in the fort would sneak out and repair whatever minor damage was done. Apparently this frustrated Governor Oglethorpe so much that he burned down the rest of the town. Fortunately the townspeople were in the fort.
For me, the best part were the beautiful cannons! They were each named (Facheno, Abajado, El Jazmin, etc) and each one had identifying marks. "At the back you can find the name of the maker, the city where it was made, and the date when the gun was manufactured. Moving towards the muzzle, you will find the royal coat of arms of the Spanish King & Queen who reigned during the making of the weapon. Next are a couple of raised handles called dolphins. Moving closer to the front of the gun, a banner bears the cannon’s name. Two of the Castillo's cannons also have a second, larger banner that reads “Violati Fulmina Regis” (thunderbolts of an offended or angry king). Each trunnion (the pivot bars on the sides of the gun) lists where the metal was acquired, the gun’s maintenance record, and how much the weapon weighs. Other features found on some of the cannons include capture dates stamped by the US Army."
Some cannons were short and squat, but they had identifying names and marks, same as the long ones, and fired powerful 12" motors.
Eventually we left, leaving our brave docent standing guard, ready to defend the castle.
After a full day out, we decided to spent the evening relaxing in, dining on caramel & cheese popcorn, BBQ chips, jellied fruit, beer and soda. Satifying and fun!
The next morning we had to leave all this behind and head home. We got a head-start - someone set off the fire alarm and everyone was herded out of the buildings. Fortunately we were already packed and ready to go. On the way home we stopped at the Magnolia Cafe in Polatka again where we enjoyed the corned beef and good conversation.
