It is not accurate to dub St. Augustine, Florida as America’s oldest town. Native American mound cities in the Upper Midwest and the Anasazi Pueblo cities of southwestern Colorado predate St. Augustine by several hundred years, as do Mexico City and the ancient Mayan city of Tikal further south. However, St. Augustine was the first permanent, declared European community in what is at present the United States, established only a little more than seventy years after Columbus’ historic expedition.
As you may expect, there is a lot in this area for the history buff, from the ruins of the original fort to the old town neighborhoods with colonial Spanish architecture and several museums. With an abundance of quaint, historic romantic travel inns, you and your family will have no trouble setting up a cozy base of operations for your St. Augustine holiday vacation.
It was essentially 1513 when explorer Ponce de Leon, then governor of what is now Puerto Rico, landed in the expanse, claiming it for King Ferdinand of Castile and Queen Isabella of Aragon as Spain was not an actually unified kingdom until 1516. Contrary to widely held myth, he was not searching for a “Fountain of Youth” but more tangible commodities such as gold, slaves and land. It was decades before a stable community could be formed.
Once you and your family are happily booked in one of St. Augustine’s beautiful bed and breakfasts or beach vacations, you will uncover enough activities and venues to last a lifetime ranging from outdoor sports and educational excursions to sheer enjoyment and fun. Get started by exploring some of the area as the original residents and early Spanish explorers saw it with St. Augustine Eco Tours, nominated the number one experience among tourists. Traveling by kayak, you will see salt marshes and wetlands and might even witness natural dolphins at play. And even though it’s vacation time, you can keep the children learning with Sheriff’s Historical Tours, which brings you through 350 years of St. Augustine’s history. Another example of St. Augustine history worth viewing is El Castillo de San Marcos, an early Spanish military installation dating from the late 1600s.
Of course, the history of St. Augustine, like so many places in the state, is closely tied to the Golden Age of the Pirates of the Caribbean who commonly made forays up the Florida coast. Children of all ages will like to climb aboard the Black Raven for a sample of shipboard life on a 17th-Century privateer.
Budding herpetologists will look forward to discovering the last living kin of the earliest dinosaurs up-close and personal at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm which contains much more than just alligators. This is just a small example of what awaits you and your family in this beautiful town filled with sunshine most of the year.
tez merkezi…
tez hazırlama…