A first time we visit resident of St. Augustine,
there is so much things to do in this historic city. Originally founded in
1565, St. Augustine is considered to be the oldest city in the United
States. St. Augustine is a very affordable city with some fantastic things to do, but
nothing is sweeter than getting something for free! There more than 15 places that can you visited St. Augustine, Florida, such as; The Castillo de San Marcos, The Lightner Museum, The St. Augustine Light, The Old Jail, Anastasia State Recreation Area, The St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park, Anastasia Island, The Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, and many mores. Before we informs the tourist attraction in St. Augustine, Florida, let we informs how the city itself.
St. Augustine is a city in Northeast Florida and the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement and port in the continental United States. The county seat of St. Johns County, it is part of Florida's First Coast region and the Jacksonville metropolitan area. St. Augustine is located at 29°53′39″N 81°18′48″W (29.89785, −81.31151). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10.7 sq mi (27.8 km2), of which, 8.4 sq mi (21.7 km2) of it is land and 2.4 sq mi (6.1 km2) of it (21.99%) is water. Access to the Atlantic Ocean is via the St. Augustine Inlet of the Matanzas River. St. Augustine, Florida has a humid subtropical climate or Cfa – typical of the Gulf and South Atlantic states. In the hot season average daytime highs are in the mid to upper 80’s (rarely over 90°) (26° to 33°C) and average night-time lows are near 70°F (21°C). In the warm and dry season, St. Augustine has mild and sunny weather typical of cities on the Florida peninsula.
1. The Castillo de San Marcos
The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States (Castillo San Felipe del Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico is older). Located on the shore of Matanzas Bay in the city of St. Augustine, Florida, construction began in 1672, 107 years after the city's founding by Spanish Admiral and conquistador Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, when Florida was part of the Spanish Empire. The construction began at the command of Francisco de la Guerra y de la Vega after after the destructive raid of Robert Searles.
2. The Lightner Museum
The Lightner Museum is a museum of antiquities, mostly American Victorian era pieces, housed within a historic Hotel Alcazar building in downtown St. Augustine, St. Johns County, northeastern Florida. The 1887 Spanish Renaissance Revival style building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Museum is housed in the former health facilities of the hotel, including the spa and Turkish bath, and in its three-storey ballroom. The museum's first floor houses a Victorian village, with shop fronts representing emporia selling period wares; a Victorian Science and Industry Room displays shells, rocks, minerals, and Native American artifacts in beautiful turn-of-the-20th-century cases, as well as stuffed birds, a small Egyptian mummy, model steam engines, elaborate examples of Victorian glassblowing, golden elephant bearing the world on its back, and a shrunken head; and a Music Room, filled with mechanized musical instruments—including player pianos, reproducing pianos, orchestrions, and others—dating from the 1870s through the 1920s. The second floor contains examples of cut glass, Victorian art glass and stained glass work of Louis Comfort Tiffany's studio. The third floor, in the ballroom's upper balcony, exhibits paintings, sculpture, and furniture, include a grande escritoire created for Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, in the period 1806-1810.
3. The St. Augustine Light
The St. Augustine Light is an active lighthouse in St. Augustine, Florida. The current lighthouse stands at the north end of Anastasia Island and was built in 1874; it is the most recent of a number of towers built in the area. The tower is owned by the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum, Inc. (SAL&M), a not-for-profit maritime museum and private aid-to-navigation. Open to the public, admission fees support continued preservation of the Lighthouse and fund programs in maritime archaeology and education. Many visitors and others believe that the lighthouse and surrounding buildings have a history of paranormal activity. Allegedly, visitors and workers have seen moving shadows, heard voices and unexplained sounds, and seen the figures of two little girls standing on the lighthouse catwalk (who purportedly were daughters of Hezekiah Pittee, Superintendent of Lighthouse Construction, during the 1870s; the girls drowned in an accident during the building of the tower). Other reports are of a woman seen on the lighthouse stairway or walking in the yard outside the buildings, and the figure of a man who roams the basement, or the unexplained smell of cigar smoke. The male figure is said to possibly be Civil War hero and former lighthouse keeper William A. Harn.
4. The Old Jail
The Old Jail (also known as Authentic Old Jail) is a historic jail in St. Augustine, Florida. It is located at 167 San Marco Avenue. On August 27, 1987, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The St. Johns County Jail now serves as the Old Jail Museum. The Old Jail Museum consists of a restored jail with sheriff's living quarters. It also contains a display of weaponry and a pictorial history of the hangings carried out at the Old Jail, with emphasis on the time the Sheriff CJ Perry was in residence with his family. The Jail is only accessible by guided tour, with costumed guides "processing" in the new prisoners. The Jail also serves as the grand finale to Old Town Trolley's Ghost and Gravestones tour, allowing visitors to access the building by night as well. Beginning the Spring of 2013 the Old Jail will once again offer overnight paranormal investigations. Partnering with 2Ghouls, a local ghost tour company, Old Town Trolley will permit up to 20 guests to remain in the Jail from 11:00pm to 2:00am on Friday and Saturday nights, so that the guests can carry out paranormal investigations for themselves.
5. Anastasia State Recreation Area
Anastasia State Recreation Area is a 1,600-acre (6.5 km2) Florida State Park located on a peninsula on the Atlantic coast of Anastasia Island across Matanzas Bay from downtown St. Augustine. The park has a variety of wildlife, birds and plants in a setting of beaches, tidal salt marsh, and marine and upland hammock. Activities include bird watching, camping, fishing, sun bathing, running, surfing, sail boarding, swimming, kayaking, hiking and picnicking. Amenities include a campground and nature trails, and the park is unique in being the site of a quarry from which the coquina stone used in the construction of the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine was mined.
6. The St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park
The St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park is one of Florida's oldest continuously running attractions, having opened on May 20, 1893. Not only does it have 23 species of crocodilians, but also a variety of other reptiles, mammals, and birds, as well as exhibits, animal performances and educational demonstrations. The back section of the park contains a large bird rookery, where free-roaming local birds species such as egrets, herons, wood storks and roseate spoonbills nest and rear their young. On September 10, 1992, the Alligator Farm was designated a U.S. Historic District. As such, it was referred to as the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Historic District. According to the National Register of Historic Places, it covers less than 1-acre (4,000 m2), and contains 1 building and 1 structure.
7. Anastasia Island
Anastasia Island is a barrier island about 14 miles (23 km) long and an average of 1 mile in width located off the northeast Atlantic coast of Florida in the United States. The island sits east of St. Augustine and runs north-south in a slightly southeastern direction to Matanzas Inlet. It is separated from the mainland by the Matanzas River, part of the Intracoastal waterway. Matanzas Bay, between the island and downtown St. Augustine, opens into St. Augustine Inlet. Part of the island (the Davis Shores and Lighthouse Park neighborhoods) is within St. Augustine city limits, while other communities on the island include St. Augustine Beach, Coquina Gables, Butler Beach, Crescent Beach, and Treasure Beach. Fort Matanzas National Monument, a Spanish colonial-era fort built 1740–1742, is located at the southern end of the island on Rattlesnake Island in the Intracoastal waterway within the park boundaries; it was designed to protect St. Augustine from attack via the Matanzas River.
8. The Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park
The Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park is a privately owned 15-acre (61,000 m2) park in St. Augustine, Florida, located along Hospital Creek, part of the Intracoastal Waterway. It is touted as being the likely 1513 Florida landing site of Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon, although recent research by amateur historian Douglas Peck has placed another possible landing site in the vicinity of Cape Canaveral in Brevard County. The park contains a freshwater spring that is claimed to be the freshwater source referred to by Ponce de Leon in Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas' Historia General.
9. Fort Matanzas National Monument
Fort Matanzas National Monument was designated a United States National Monument on October 15, 1924. The monument consists of a 1740 Spanish fort called Fort Matanzas, and about 100 acres (0.4 km²) of salt marsh and barrier islands along the Matanzas River on the northern Atlantic coast of Florida. It is operated by the National Park Service in conjunction with the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in the city of St. Augustine. In 1916, the U.S Department of War began a major restoration of the badly deteriorated fort. By 1924, three vertical fissures in the wall were repaired and the structure was stabilized;[5] in the same year, National Monument status was proclaimed. Fort Matanzas was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service on August 10, 1933. As a historic area under the Park Service, the National Monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. The Fort Matanzas National Monument Headquarters and Visitor Center were added separately to the National Register on December 31, 2008, as significant works of National Park Service architectural design.
10. The Casa Monica Hotel
The Casa Monica Hotel is a historic hotel located in St. Augustine, Florida, in the United States. The Casa Monica Hotel is one of the oldest hotels in the United States and is a member of the "Historic Hotels of America" National Trust. The hotel created a controversy when they sent an employee home on Thursday, October 13, 2011 for refusing to take off an American Flag lapel pin that he claims he has worn to work every day for two years. St. Johns county Commissioner Mark Miner issued this statement on the issue:"The Casa Monica Hotel and Kessler Enterprise certainly have the legal right to forbid their employees from wearing an American flag pin. However, their inability to discern between the flag of our nation and other pins and buttons that their policies forbid is of great concern to me. St. Johns County is home to nearly 2...0,000 military veterans and is made up of an ideologically and culturally diverse population whose collective love for the United States is second to none. I want to make clear that the actions taken by the Casa Monica Hotel and Kessler Enterprise do not represent the patriotism shared by St. Johns County residents and businesses." "I hope Kessler Enterprise will act quickly to correct the disrespect they have shown the flag of our great nation and end the embarrassment they have brought upon St. Johns County."
