St. Augustine is a small pearl of the eastern coast of the United States, full of romantic atmosphere and the charm of antiquity. St. Augustine is known as the oldest of North American cities that have been continuously inhabited. Travelers here are waiting for characteristic historic streets, Spanish-style architecture and a panoramic beach. And this city with a population of only about 13,000 people is the headquarters of the Florida National Guard.

How to get to St. Augustine

The St. Augustine / Saint Johns District Airport takes mostly private flights. The nearest airport, where you can fly a regular flight, is in the nearest major city - Jacksonville. From here you can get to St. Augustine by train or bus. It's also easy to arrive here and by car via interstate 95.

A little history

The city was founded in 1565 . Spanish Admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles, and for two hundred years was the capital of Spanish Florida . He remained the main city of East Florida, when these lands passed from Spaniards to Englishmen, and ceased to be the capital only in 1824 . Since the end of the 19th century, the historical atmosphere the city has made it a very popular tourist attraction of the state . A separate chapter in the development of St. Augustine is associated with the name of Henry Flagger, a partner John Rockefeller in Standard Oil . Arriving in the city in the 1880s ., Flanger built here some extravagant buildings, several churches, opened a baseball park and a number of hotels, and also a hospital . We can say that it was the "Flagger era" that became for St. Augustine the defining one, since the city became American .

Entertainment, excursions and attractions of St. Augustine

Exclusive hotel "Pons-de-Leon" was opened G . Flagger in 1888 g . It is designed according to the samples of the Spanish Renaissance by New York architects from the worlds the creators of "Carrere and Hastings" . Using shell rock as raw materials, they turned the building into something amazing, making it entirely of composite material - for those times it was a novelty . Not only that, it was also one of the first electrified hotels: the light bulbs were powered by the generators of Flagger's friend - the notorious Thomas Edison . Today the hotel building belongs to Flagger's College .

The second historic Flagger hotel in St. Augustine is the Alcazar, which stands directly opposite Pons de Leon . It was also built in the spirit of the Spanish Renaissance by the same architects, from the same material and completed a year before the hotel-colleague ."Alcazar" was no less exclusive: there were arranged paired, massage, gym, a three-tier ballroom and the world's largest swimming pool .The hotel closed in 1932 ., and in 1946 g .Chicago publisher Otto Layter bought the building to accommodate his extensive collection of Victorian subjects .Two years later, in a building with amazing symmetrical towers and an arched bridge across a pond with fish, the Laiter Museum opened, which the collector later gave the city .

Another amazing building, for which St. Augustine should be thank Fläger, is the Memorial Presbyterian Church .It was built on Valencia Street in 1889 .and is a very richly decorated building in the Venetian style .The same Carrer and Hastings in the construction of the church were guided by the St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, although they built it on the same newest technology at the time of the injection stone .As in hotel buildings, many individual church details are made terracotta, which gives it an unusually elegant look .

The Colonial Museum of the Spanish Quarter is located on George Street, and his visit is a journey through time. You can go to the smithy, to the carpentry workshop, to visit the soldier's wife (and they will all be engaged in their daily affairs). Costumed characters tell stories of the everyday life of St. Augustine in the 1740s, when the city was a distant outpost of the Spanish Empire. Tourists can walk around the block on their own, without a guide.

"The oldest house in Florida" is a common name, not even for the house, but for the whole museum complex, which is run by the urban historical society. The complex includes two museums, an art gallery with temporary exhibitions, an ornamental garden and a museum shop (one ticket can be viewed all this). An additional attraction is the house of Gonzalez-Alvarez, the oldest surviving Spanish dwelling in the state. They lived here since the 1600's, and the current building dates back to the early 1700s.

Another national monument, Fort Matanzas, is a small observation tower built by the Spaniards in the 1740s .on a small island to control the southern route to the city along the Matanzas River .On the island today go daily ferries, and on the adjacent island of Anastasia you can walk on foot, for this is equipped with a special 800-meter track .Finally, another fort - Fort Moes - is a historic park where the first black settlement of America was founded .This happened in 1738 ., when the Spaniards settled here black slaves of British masters .The settlement is located about 3 km north of St. Augustine . The status of the oldest attraction is shared with the farm "Fountain of Youth", an archaeological park of 15 acres.

The Potter Wax Museum is located on Kings Street and offers a good pastime for the whole family .Here are exhibited more than 160 figures, starting from the founding fathers and ending with the celebrities of our days .Another fun entertainment can be obtained at the Ripley Museum "Believe it or not! ", Which was first opened in the building of Castle-Warden .The museum opened the doors in 1950 ., and here they shot fragments of the same show .In the exhibition you can see a mummified cat, live and posthumous masks of various celebrities, shamanic objects of different cultures of the world and so on .

Events of St. Augustine

The Spring and Autumn Festival of Art and Crafts is held by the St. Augustine Art Association for more than 70 years. Now the event takes place in Francis Field, near the tourist center, in the art district of Aptune. In autumn the festival takes place on the weekend of Thanksgiving, and in the spring - in the weekend after Easter. Here you can get acquainted with the works of more than one and a half hundred artists of the whole country: painting, sculpture, jewelry, ceramics, photography and all sorts of other two- and three-dimensional masterpieces.

The annual Christmas Parade has become one of the largest in North Florida. Here you can see carts, cars, horses, tigers and, of course, Santo. The parade starts at the Nombre de Dios Mission and runs through the entire old city, ending at the tourist center at Castillo Drive.

The night of lights passes in the historical part of the city, beginning on the weekend before Thanksgiving and ending at the end of January. More than a million small white lights light up these days on the embankment and old buildings.

Every first Friday in the city, an event called "art walk" is organized - it is the night of new exhibitions, concerts and entertainment shows in the city center.