Nights of Lights in St. Augustine

November 27-December 3, 2023                                 Most Recent Posts:
Anastasia State Park                                           Anastasia and St. Augustine
St Augustine, Florida                                    Fernandina Beach and Egan Creek

In my second week at Anastasia,  the highlight was meeting Mary and Pete relatively new full timers originally from New York.  They are wonderful friends and we have been in touch nearly daily ever since meeting.  This happened because I stopped by to ask Pete about his flat satellite dish as I walked by their campground.   One thing led to another and ….. I simply cannot believe I took only one picture of them.   I have texted Mary and she kindly remedied that. 

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 28

I planned my Hop on Hop off Trolley ride without checking the weather.  It turned out, of course, to be the coldest day of my stay.  Lack of attention to detail is a very bad habit of mine.

Hop on/Hop Off  appears to be the only historic tour offered any more so I wanted to hear what they would tell me as they drove around and I wanted to be able to do a few more of the 5 walking tours in the brochure I showed in the last post (link above).   I have done the St George Street tour and today did Around the Plaza and the Flagler Buildings.

I drove to the starting point which had free parking for the day – A BIG THING in St. Augustine where what parking exists is EXPENSIVE.

I rode all the way around the 45 minute route listening to the driver and then got off at St George Street – the cobblestone walking mall I wrote about in the previous post.  Yes I’d been there but by this point I was FREEZING and needed something warm.   As in a restaurant with food.

Things seen as I rode by before lunch.

Fancy Fences at the edge of the sidewalk and houses on side streets

Memorial Presbyterian Church – more on it in the Flagler tour

Flagler College formerly the Hotel Ponce de Leon

Bridge of Lions, a draw bridge over the Matanzas River (inland waterway),  connects St Augustine to Anastasia Island and the state park.

Castillo de San Marcos which means St. Mark’s Castle is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States.  Its construction was begun in 1672 by the Spanish to defend La Florida (floor ee dah) and the Matanzas Bay.

Though the fort is a National Monument run by the National Park Service, I did not do its walking tour (number 5) as I have done it before and do not usually visit forts or other sites having to do with war.

I did visit the City Gates on my St George Street Tour.  This is actually a better picture than I took standing in front of them.   This was  the only entrance to the city from the north for a very long time.

I got off the trolley at the head of St George Street as it started its turn around again.  I headed for the first restaurant with indoor seating that served hot soup, in this case clam chowder.   I hoped the soup, a cup of hot water with lemon and some high carb fries Iwould warm me up.

After that, I headed to the trolley stop at the end of the walking portion of St George Street.   The trolley drives down this narrow street.  I got off at the Flagler College stop.

Henry Flagler was one of those 19th Century self made men from humble circumstances.  In his case, from  up state New York.  Born in 1830 he became one of the original partners with John D Rockefeller in Standard oil and was a multimillionaire by the time he came to St. Augustine in the winter of 1883.  Imagine how much his multi millions would be worth now.

In 1889 he built the Alcazar Hotel, now the Lightner Museum directly across the street from his first hotel built in 1888, the Ponce De Leon.  The Alcazar contained recreational facilities such as health spas, gymnasium, steam baths and the world’s largest indoor swimming pool.   Definitely worth a visit.   There is a picture of it later lit up for Nights of Lights.

Th3 picture below is looking from the Alcazar (Lightner) past its fountain to the Hotel Ponce de Leon across the street.  

The Hotel Ponce de Leon is simply spectacular.  It is acclaimed as one of the finest examples of Spanish Renaissance Revival architecture in America. 

I guess I understand why Flagler’s Hotels fell on hard times in the depression and could not recover.  Flagler died at 83 in 1913 from a fall at his home in Palm Beach.  I wonder if they would have been able to make it had he not.

But wow are they something.  In 1967 the hotel was turned into Flagler college, a four year co-ed liberal arts college.

Henry stands watch now over the entrance gates.

The detailing on the architecture is breath taking.

Can you even imagine having this as your college campus?  The former dining room is now the college cafeteria and its Tiffany Stained Glass windows are insured for over $100 Million dollars.

The entry hall formerly the main lobby.

I didn’t take the tour this time.  Last time it was $5 and this time $17.  Maybe next time.

The gazebo on the grounds of Flagler College

Henry Flagler built the Memorial Presbyterian Church in 1889 as a memorial to his only daughter Jenny Louise Benedict after she and her new born daughter Margery both died of complications of childbirth.  The church takes up an entire block.  This is either the front, or the side entrance.

This is the other entrance.  The church is Venetian Renaissance Architecture with a dome more than 100 feet high.  It is open to the public but unfortunately was closed the day I was walking to see it.

I picked up the trolley again here at the church.

Horse and carriage rides are available all afternoon and evening to take you around St Augustine. 

From the trolley I could see across the Matanzas River to the Lighthouse on Anastasia Island.

At this point, I was cold and tired and not up to walk #3 the Plaza.. 

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 29

The next day I gave Mary a $5 discount coupon and she got tickets for the Nights of Lights.  Turned out not to be nearly as cold thankfully since that trolley is after dark.

Things have changed a great deal since I did the Nights of Lights last and since Covid.  David and I paid $24 each to go if I remember right.  Now you have to buy an entire bench seat starting at $72 and going up depending on the time of your reservation.   They originally made that change so people would not be bunched up but given how close the seats are front and back it seems a token.  Apparently they made more money that way, so they kept it AND increased the cost by time.   The later you go, the more it costs per bench.    Ahhhhh Capitalism!

Obviously the best thing to do if you are a solo is to have friends to split the cost with which is just what we did.  How lucky am I to have met Mary and Pete.

Not only that, I REALLY did not want to deal with driving into St Augustine and finding parking which was a real bear even the last time.  But Mary and Pete are up with all the latest things and Pete knows how to get a Lyft from his phone.

So off we went for our scheduled time of 6:30 – cheaper tickets earlier.

Unfortunately for me and the blog, I chose the wrong side of the trolley and fearing the cold weather picked the second row rather than the first that we could have had.  Mary and Pete must have thought I was crazy and they were right but they were very good sports about it.  Of course Pete is so tall he can see over everyone.  As most of you know, at 5’ 0” I’m not so lucky.

This first blurry picture above  is just to try to show the lights on the trolley itself.

What follows is the best of what I took. 

The Central Plaza Trees were beautiful but this is all I could get of them from my side.

The city outdoes itself.   Can’t imagine what their electric bill is.

At the end when we were heading off to arrange the Lyft back, Mary and Pete posed for me.  Without them, I would not have done this by myself.   Thank you thank you Mary and Pete.

The Lyft picked us up at Potter’s Wax Museum.  Everybody knows where that is.  Right?

Turns out that my last week in St Augustine had too much in it for one post.  No wonder I posted every single day for the nearly 9 years I traveled with David.  It must have been the only way I could cover all we did in anything approaching a reasonable size blog post.  Still I have no idea how I did it every day.  I don’t do nearly as much now that I’m on my own.  Still, even trying to do one post a week seems difficult now.

My last two walking tours of the Plaza and the area leading to the Oldest House will get their own post.  FYI,  Oldest House is a bit of a misnomer.  I’ll explain next time.  Also a sunset video I think.