Established 42 years before Jamestown, St. Augustine is the oldest town in the U.S. This town has a rich history- from exploration by Ponce de Leon, to the founding of the city by Juan Pedro Menendez de Aviles, to the development of the city as a playground for the rich by Henry Flagler-there is so much to see, do, and learn about in St. Augustine. Likewise, there are no shortage of museums and exhibits here. Brian and I had visited before, so we had already explored many of the sites. Our goal for this trip was to give Owen and Olivia a dose of the history without boring them to tears. I think it worked- before we left, Olivia came to the conclusion that "everything in this city is about it being old". We did visit many "old" sites- the oldest jail, the oldest pharmacy, the oldest schoolhouse, etc... However, the thing that the kids liked the best was the old fort- El Castillo de San Marcos. We visited the fort twice. On the first visit, the kids had a blast checking out the rooms, grounds, and bastions of the Castillo. We returned at the fort the next day to watch a reenactment of a military exercise where the "soldiers" fired a cannon. Owen was really into the cannon firing and he watched the whole production intently. This kind of surprised me because the reenactment was entirely in Spanish (this was a Spanish fort, after all). He really liked when the cannon fired and said that it was "cool". In addition to visiting the fort, we also took a narrated trolley tour and spent some time in the old quarter. As a bonus, we also ate a nice, semi-fancy meal at the Colombia restaurant (Spanish food- yummy). We had a great time on our little trip to St. Augustine. Seeing as how we live a short 2.5 hours away, we will most certainly be back.
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