St. Augustine

On the way south we spent just one night in St. Augustine but decided it was worth a lot more. So as we spent three nights on the way north.

It's a great old city which believes in recycling old buildings and building a new Bridge of Lions to look just like the old one. The jewels of the historic area are the old Flagler built hotels, the Ponce de Leon and across the street the Alcazar. These hotels were built in the late 19th century by Henry Flagler of Standard Oil fame as winter resort hotels for the wealthy. Today the Ponce is home to Flagler College and the Alcazar is the St Augustine City Hall and home to the Lightner Museum.

In the early 20th century Otto Lightner, a Chicago Publishing Tycoon, bought the Alcazar which occupies a whole city block, for $150,000 as a place to showcase his collections of stuff. Today you can tour the Lightner Museum and see a fascinating display of 19th and 20th century memorabilia as well a large section of very well preserved hotel architecture. A demonstration of self playing musical instruments is fascinating. After the tour you can have lunch in the deep end of a former indoor pool in the old hotel. The restaurant is run by the famous Athena and the food is terrific, reasonably priced, and accompanied by live piano music. Nice!