I rarely look to take tours when travelling as I generally find them a touch trite and formulaic with ever present baited hooks trolling for tourist dollars.
However for once I did – a trolley car trip around St. Augustine that took a few hours.
The decision was based on a few criteria:
- parking in downtown is hard to get, parking at the tour headquarters was free.
- though St. Augustine is small, it is probably too large to walk around easily.
- it was a beautiful day, so an open car, dawdling mode of transportation seemed a good idea.
I’m glad I did.
St. Augustine is a beautiful place, and as the oldest continuously occupied settlement in America, is full of history.
The town centre is based around a beautiful open garden, with ancient buildings surrounding it, or at most a block away.
The tour starts out of town, at the Old Jail. Our tour guide is a fantastic, funny, older guy, full of information who wittily entertains us and controls a couple of rowdy kids.
It’s an interesting throwback to an older time – the cells are small, not enclosed, with almost barbaric conditions given the number of people held in each. There is a replica gallows out the back, where a number of people, both black and white were executed.
We learn that in one case, out of town doctors visited to carry out experiments on the condemned man, including seeing how long he survived once he dropped through the chute. This was done by asking him questions every 30 secs and recording his responses.
Apparently he lasted 12 mins before he stopped giving discernable replies, though that is no guarantee he was actually dead, just unresponsive. If that had been me, I don;t think I would have given a response to the first question, just to spite the buggers.
We get more stories about the primitive living, working and bathing conditions (which made a few people shudder).
It reveals much about how doctors, the judiciary and even the general public thought of “criminals” back in the day – and I’m glad we’ve evolved out of those dark days.
Also at tour headquarters are an old General Store and a small museum – as they are free I check them out, but they are not much more than standard tourist fare, though the General Store has quite a few machines back from the 1800s that are interesting to look at.
Once on the trolley wanders around the streets of St. Augustine, with stops every 5 mins of so to drop off and pick up passengers. I won’t detail every place here, but suffice to say it’s a pleasant and informative couple of hours, hopping on and off, with little waiting time between cars.
Highlights include the local distillery, the fort, the winery, a chocolate shop and the stunning architecture. The lowlight is the “Fountain of Youth” park (it’s just an inland fresh mineral water reservoir) but I take a drink anyway. Just in case there is something in the old rumours.
Once the tour is over, Charlotte and I take a slow drive across the St. Augustine drawbridge (we got caught waiting on the way back) to tour the beaches. It’s a little breezy, so there is no real desire for either a swim or just a laze on the sand. But there are miles of white sand beaches, plenty of sailboats back in the bay/waterways, and a real coastal getaway feel.
By the time the sun sets, I’m about as relaxed as a man can be – a touch sunburnt, but full of sea air, warm weather and fun times.
I make my way back to JP Henley’s to catch the NCAA basketball championship game between Villanova and North Carolina.
What a FINISH!
And a perfect way to end a brilliant day in a gorgeous town.
Today was one of the glamour days from the road.
