Lena Victoire

Thursday, November 15 – Still in St. Augustine:

This morning dawned cloudy and cold, but no howling wind or rain – that’s something to be thankful for. The weather has been crazy – if it’s sunny, it’s hot, and if it’s cloudy and rainy, it’s cold. I made a nice breakfast – scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, English muffins, and coffee – then Bob and I ate Biscotti and played cards for awhile. I wrote about our restaurant experience last night, then we decided we better explore the town since the weather was not going to get any better.

Paul, the dock master, suggested his friend Heather who has a taxi, for our transportation into town. I was a little concerned about this as Paul also suggested the restaurant last night! The town is actually just around the corner a bit, but you have to walk on a major highway to get there, so we don’t really don’t want to do that and opt for the taxi instead. Heather comes right away, and drops us off right in the middle of the town. Since it is 12:30 p.m., and we are hungry because we didn’t have enough for breakfast, we decide to do lunch first. After some research this morning, Bob has found a little French bakery that serves lunch, Denoel’s French Pantry. This is a local place that has been in business for over 40 years, and the owner, Guy Denoel is a pastry chef. We shared a chicken salad and a shrimp salad sandwich on a “real” croissant. It was delicious! Then, of course, for dessert, we shared a puff pastry – honest – it was small. Now we definitely need to walk around. As we are having lunch, we are perusing a guide book we got at the Visitor’s Center, and decide to visit the “oldest house” in St. Augustine – The Gonzalez-Alvarez House. The pamphlet from the Historical Society says that this house “is one of the country’s best documented and studied old houses.” According to the brochure, archaeologists can show continuous occupancy of this house from the early 1600’s to the present. The St. Augustine Historical Society acquired the house in 1918. It was an informative, fascinating tour.

Next up, we decided to avoid the shopping district and instead walk around the back streets and look at the other old houses. Many of the structures in this part of Florida are built from tabby, which is a mixture of lime, coquina (native shellstone), and sand. The streets are narrow and cobble-stoned, and you can glimpse private well-groomed gardens filled with gorgeous hibiscus in bloom and many other tropical plants (which I don’t have any idea of their names) in and around the houses. We had been told that we had to tour Flagler College, which used to be the Ponce de Leon luxury hotel built in 1888 by Henry Flagler. We didn’t go on the “official” tour, but you can get a general feel for the magnificence of the place and times past just by walking into the lobby and looking up at the dome and other Tiffany stained glass windows.

Then we walked across the street to the Lightner Museum, which originally was Henry Flagler’s Alcazar Hotel. This hotel had a swimming pool built in 1889, which was four stories tall with a glass ceiling that could be opened for the view! Now a wonderful café, Café Alcazar, occupies the “deep end” of the pool, and other specialty shops occupy the “shallow end”. I bought a lovely dresser scarf from a linen store operated by a British woman who also loved the TV show, Doc Martin. She and I had a great conversation.

We were starting to flame out by now, and found some sustenance at the local Starbucks in the Casa Monica Hotel before we called Heather and returned to the boat. St. Augustine is a beautiful, friendly historic town and definitely worth a trip back so you can spend more time and really take in the history and color of this place. We are supposed to stay here another day, but I think Bob may be getting antsy to move on.

Back at the boat, we take a rest, play with the cat, and contemplate the next few days. We should be in Cocoa Beach by early next week – probably Monday!

After our dining experience last night, we will definitely be grilling salmon tonight – probably accompanied by garlic roasted couscous and a vegetable.

Then, we’ll see what tomorrow brings!