Nov 14 - St Augustine, FL

We were only 7 miles from the Florida border so crossed early. Stopped at the Info Center to load up on info for the next leg of the trip. We went into St Augustine and took a narrated trolley tour through the old part of town. This is a beautiful city with so much interesting history.It is the oldest European city in the USA. First visited by Ponce de Leon in 1513, but it was Juan Menendez de Aviles who established the first settlement almost half a century before the first English settlers landed in Jamestown. Incidently, Ponce de Leon was only 4'8" when he met the local native Indians who were almost 7' tall (he always wore his tall Spanish hat in order to look taller !!) St A grew to become the Spanish center of power in North America for almost 200 years. In 1672 they built Castillo de San Marcos. The Spanish sold Florida to America in 1821 and left the city. In 1883, Henry Flagler (oil tycoon) came to the city -he invested in the restoration and developmentof the city as a winter resort.He contributed some of the cities grandest architecture -Alcazar Hotel (now the Lightner Museum), the Cordova and the Ponce de Leon (now Flagler College). St A retains the distinctive plan of a 16th century Spanish colonial walled town with buildings from 1703-1898 (Gov't House -1825, Basilica Cathedral of St A which incorporates the 1797 parish church -one of the oldest Catholic religious buildings in the US, the Oldest House -1706). Whisked south in their private cars on Flagler's Florida East Coast Railroad, noteables such as Vanderbilts, Rockerfellers & Morgans made St A their winter homes. This was a great stop.

From here we headed south to Daytona and checked into International RV Park.