Fort Matanzas to St. Augustine

My Sweeties!

We woke up this morning right next to an old Spanish Fort on the Matanzas River.  It was small by Fort standards, but it was put there to prevent attacks on St. Augustine.  Seems to have worked, they never had to fight a battle and only fired the cannons once to warn off approaching British ships.   After that interesting tour we left for St. Augustine and arrived mid-day at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina. 

Ft. Matanzas 50x50x30, 4 cannons

The Marina is a great place, well situated near all the historic and tourist destinations and it has nice clean amenities, floating docks and helpful dock-hands.  I would highly recommend it for a Looper stop.

St. Augustine is fabulous, much more than I expected.  We toured the Castillo de san Marcos, a fort that has been protecting St. Augustine since the 1600’s.  It has been under 5 different flags, including Spanish (twice), French, British and American.   Much larger than the first fort, it could protect 500 soldiers and harbored 1300 townsfolk during a British siege of 38 days in 1740.

Then we took off wandering and found narrow streets lined with shops, restaurants, inns and all kinds of beautiful architecture and ambience.  Old Town St. Augustine is a real treasure and it would be easy to spend several days exploring.  We found art shops and galleries on Avile St. We finished the evening at  an Irish Pub restaurant, with a Caribbean Bar outback.  Under the trees and among the fountains were all kinds of mermaid sculptures, fish art, Guinness Beer and several enticing tropical drinks.  We enjoyed it all and look forward to more of St. Augustine tomorrow.

 

Irish Pub with a Tropical Backyard