Day 23: St Augustine and Atlantic Beach

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Today we drove about 20miles south to St Augustine, the oldest town in the USA. It was originally a Spanish military settlement, until Spain swapped Florida for Cuba with the British (and then France gave them Louisiana as a consolation prize). First stop we visited the old town fort, Castillo de San Marcos, built in 1672. It was really interesting, although there was a fair amount of 'look at these pictures of the brave Spanish defending the fort against the evil British'. We then walked into the centre of town and bought ice creams (I had birthday cake flavour - om nom nom) and stamps for our postcards, before we couldn't bear the heat any more and retreated to the a/c in our car. The road there is pretty amazing in itself, since it runs along a really narrow island the the ocean and there are some huge mansions with private beaches.

After a lazy late lunch we sought out the Atlantic Ocean and swam and built a massive sandcastle. For supper, Joanna's mother came over (a very spry 95yo). It was really interesting talking to the family - they've travelled so much, and Lyman grew up in central Florida during all the civil rights movement.

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Photos

Cannon
Alice told me to hug it, not sure why

Sandcastle
Proof of what two Oxford graduates with 1sts can achieve