Three Go To Orlando. Day 18 St Augustine 18th October 2012

nickymouse66 · 19 Nov 12, 10:58 PM

Today we were picked up from the Rosen Inn at 7.15am, we got there early & went in for a coffee, we had stocked up on snacks for the day ahead and were really looking forward to it.

We got to St Augustine by 9.15am and I had paid in advance for the Old Town Trolley Tour.
Our bus driver recommended the scenic boat ride on the Victory III, so we did this first, it cost $16 for Mike & I and $9.75 for Cody as she is 18 � the tour is a mixture of history and scenery and was interesting, we sat on the upper deck of the boat soaking up the sun and there were only about six other people on it.
We went as far as the lighthouse and then came back � it lasted for around an hour. There was a boat in the harbour which had carried Mayor Giuliani around New York city following 9/11 and which Marilyn Monroe had holidayed on, we learned that the huge bridge across the river was originally built by the British and also that they fly five flags in the city � one for each of the conquering Nations. It was fascinating.

We got on the trolley tour at Potters Wax Museum (the building in the picture below originally housed the wax museum, it was further up the street and was used in the Vincent Price film House of Wax � an interesting fact for a horror fan like me!)

and you can get on & off as many times as you like, which is very good as there are so many interesting things to see, the commentary from the trolley drivers is really informative, we saw a house where Martin Luther King spent a night and passed the location where Abraham Lincoln signed the proclamation to free the slaves.

We got off at the Old Jail which was in use until 1959 (one of the tour guides won't enter the building as it is so haunted!),

we did some shopping at the Outpost,

then we walked from there to the Fountain of Youth

� it cost us $12 each to go in but was interesting � there were excavation sites to look at which dated back hundreds of years as well as recreations of how the native people lived, there are cannons which are fired at certain times of the day and a blacksmith at work in an old fashioned forge � we didn't go into the planetarium, but we did sample the water from the Fountain itself (it was foul!) sadly we haven't noticed any effects as yet, but we are hopeful!

We didn't have time to fully explore everything and would like to have done a wine tasting and a couple of the other stops on the tour, we did manage to do the whole circuit though, so even though we didn't get off, we did actually see everything.

We thought the whole place was lovely, the architecture was amazing and very Spanish, there were some beautiful shops and restaurants and I'd have really enjoyed doing the night time ghost tours � there were several, some were run by Ripleys (the first Ripleys Believe It or Not is here), so we all agreed if we ever come back to Florida, we'd like to spend two or three days here to really explore, this was a lovely taster though and we were really glad we came.

We did hit a fair bit of traffic on the way back and it took nearly three hours, it couldn't be helped, and the driver took us straight back to our hotel which was really nice of him.

We had had another full day, so decided we'd head next door to Dennys for dinner as we didn't feel like going too far � the cost us $42 and consisted of a pot roast, spaghetti & meatballs, country fried steak, 2 sundaes, a caramel apple crunch, 2 soft drinks & an Oreo milkshake.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and crashed out � it had been another fantastic day.