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Published: December 12th 2007
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In the 16th Century, there was a rampant debate in Spain about what consituted "Horture."
They ultimately decided that putting horses in slings for the duration of crossing the Atlantic was not a form of "Horture," although scholarly debate of the practice continues to this day. Obfuscator writes: It was a good day to wake up in St. Augustine. The weather was clear and sunny, and with temperatures that must have been high 70's. Right near the ocean like St. Augustine is, it was beautiful and mild. We wanted to see as much as we could of the town before leaving in the evening, so we got underway fairly quickly, and drove to the historic downtown area, where we found a metered parking spot. Of course, we weren't keen on feeding a meter, but you don't have much choice in St. Augustine. Finding a free parking spot is quite challenging.
The first place we stopped was a visitor's center and museum. I think, but am not sure, that it may have been an old government building. At any rate, the focus of the museum was on local history, not on the building itself. Since St. Augustine bills itself as the United States' oldest permanent settlement, there's perhaps more to its local history than most would initially think. First explored by the Spanish, it remained mostly in Spanish control until the United States took it along with the rest of Florida early in the 1800's. It had
a rather turbulent history, being attacked by pirates and the British on several notable occasions. The museum was pretty informative though, and we were definitely able to kill some time there. We left the green area that surrounds the museum, and walked a bit of the historic streets. They're mostly overrun with tourist shops, but it's still pretty neat.
Nearby, we dropped into an interesting looking Catholic church, which turned out to be the St. Augustine Cathedral-Basilica. The parish in St. Augustine has been there since 1565, making it the oldest still serving Catholic Parish in the United States. The present church, unsurprisingly, wasn't built that early, but in 1793. Due to a major fire, it had to be heavily reconstructed in 1887. The cathedral also has great murals painted on its walls and ceilings, and the styling is really distinct from more traditional northern European models.
A fair amount of what's pretty in St. Augustine isn't old. A lot of it is built to look old, but isn't, and plenty of it isn't really even meant to look all that old . . . just distinct. You get an interesting mix of a lot of different European
architectural styles as you go through the town, particularly Mediterranean looks. Perhaps I could say more about it, but I'm no architecture expert. Apparently though, a lot of the most distinct buildings sprouted up because of a guy named Flagler, who was a major partner is Standard Oil, who wanted to turn the town into the Newport of the South. That plan seemed to work fairly well, since it's basically a beautiful town and seemingly prosperous.
One of Flagler's big hotels in the middle of town has been turned into Flagler College, a lovely little liberal arts school. Across the street, another of his huge hotels now houses many shops, some city offices, and the Lightner Museum, which apparently has quite a bit of 19th Century art. It looked like it would be really interesting, but we weren't sure we had time, so we instead headed over to the Castillo de San Marcos, which is the oldest masonry fort in the US, built by the Spanish to guard the settlement. It was built of Coquina, which is a form of stone mostly made of petrified shells. Apparently this stone was quite hard and made a great fort, perhaps partly
because the walls of the fort were also incredibly thick. At any rate, while the town and previous forts had suffered at the hands of the British and pirates, when the British led by Oglethorpe came to take the fort in 1740, they were unable to do so. When the Spanish turned over Florida to the English, they used the fort as well, and then it was again inhabited by the Spanish when they again took over administration of Florida. The fort was last used by the United States as a prison for rebellious Indians, in the early 1800s.
We were in the Castillo for longer, perhaps, than we had anticipated, and so when we got out, we figured we only had one more stop in us. Since St. Augustine is home to the famous Ripley's Castle, of Ripley's Believe it or Not fame, we figured that we couldn't really pass the opportunity up. The castle itself, really more of a mansion, was pretty, but you didn't get to see all that much of it. Mostly you just got to see parts of Ripley's incredible and bizarre collection. There were all sorts of oddities, many of which I honestly
didn't find all that incredible, but there were definitely enough bizarre yet true things, that my need to be fascinated by abominations was sated. It was funny though, because while much of Ripley's collection is more grotesque than anything in House on the Rock, I was still much less disturbed by the overall effect of Ripley's Castle than I remember being in House on the Rock.
We drove north from St. Augustine and into Georgia, where we stopped at Laura Walker State Park, just outside the Okefenokee Swamp. We had a quick fire and ate some dinner, before relaxing for the night to Axis and Allies.
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Michelle
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I love 19th century french realism... but for breakfast
Degas on toast.....the what is the world coming to?