We're finally home after a few days exploring
St Augustine. We've been there several times before (a year ago when we fell in love, at Christmas when we went to see the lights, and last summer when we got engaged), but this is the first time we've had the opportunity to actually look around. It's a beautiful town, the oldest in the US. It's practically unchanged in the last 100 years, so it has a real sense of history to it. (
Actually, that's a lie, but more on this in a later blog post.) We'd both love to end up living there if we can afford it and we can deal with the practical issues of kids & schools & jobs, and so it was the natural choice for our wedding and honeymoon.
Look away now, folks. Matt & Anna get mushy on the beach.
I was smitten by a nasty cold last week (great timing, eh?) so it was a little more subdued than we were expecting, but we still managed to fit in a lot.
The Fort (Castillo de San Marco, St Mark's Fort, Fort Marion - it's had many names in the last 400 years) is one of the star-pattern fortresses that you no longer see in Europe. It's successfully defended the city ever since it was built. It's been occupied by the Spanish, French, English and Americans, and was still in use a hundred years ago. The place is a testament to the power of cannon: no ship was able to sail down the Matanzas River past the fort. It was also well night impregnable to anything the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries could throw at it. It's built from coquina, which is basically compacted seashells, and cannonballs just bounced off it.

Anna gets something powerful between her thighs.
A short way along the seafront from the fort is Harry's, one of the restaurtants that everybody - and I mean everybody - told us we had to try. It's a chain, but don't let that put you off. It was, quite simply, superb. It's a specialty seafood place, so I couldn't eat most of what was on the menu, and settled instead for Louisiana pork tenderloin, which came with a mushroom pepper sauce. I have never, ever tasted pork so good. Definitely a place to revisit every time we go.
Harry's. In case you missed it earlier, they serve the best pork ever. Really.
We had originally intended to get married in the courtyard of The Lightner Museum, but that plan fell through when they told us how much it would cost. So instead, we just wandered round it. The place is a glorious pseudo-Spanish former hotel and casino that houses the most insane collection, of, well, collections. Lightner was a rich eccentric (there are a lot of those in St Augustine's history) who founded Hobbies magazine and collected other people's collections. It didn't matter what they were collections of, he wanted them. As he was dying, he bought the old Hotel Alcazar and created a museum for all his stuff. It's just completely, totally random, and it's a joy to walk around, as you have absolutely no idea what you're going to find next.

The Lightner Building. Looking out from this window: you can see the tower reflected.
The building also houses an enormous Victorian swimming pool and steam bath, which is just pure steampunkery. More on the swimming pool later: for now, I'll just mention the circa 1910 poster which was advertising displays by young ladies of stunts performed in the swimming pool. The poster noted that the ladies would be wearing specially designed costumes that would help gentlemen appreciate their athleticism, and pointed out that the show was not designed to stimulate prurient interest, but to aid in the understanding of the health benefits of swimming. Right. That'd be like the three entrances to the magnificent Ponce de Leon hotel, then. The main entrance, the ladies' entrance, and the entrance for unaccompanied ladies round the back, out of view of any of the churches.

The steam room.
Cellar 6 was an oddity. It felt too upmarket for St Augustine, as if it really wanted to be in Manhattan. It was pleasant enough, the food was good, and the service was excellent, but somehow, not what I was looking for.
Later that evening we took a romantic moonlight carriage ride around the city. Our driver, Will, was obviously suffering from end of season tour guide fatigue, and his commentary was laced with an unexpected level of cynicism and acerbic wit. Actually, that made it a lot more fun than the usual tourist nonsense. The one thing that sticks in my mind is that the one guest house that claims not to be haunted is a former funeral parlor - and they don't put that on the brochures!

St Augustine at night.
We kicked off our last day in town with a trip round the Villa Zorayda, another wonderful folly built by a rich eccentric, Franklin W. Smith. Allegedly a tenth-scale replica of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, it's nothing of the sort. It's a private home inspired by Moorish architecture which incorporates some styling from the Alhambra, and is home to a lot of amazing artifacts. In its time, it's also been a club, restaurant, casino, and speakeasy, and it just oozes character. The surprising thing about the place is that the architecture is actually really shoddy, especially in comparison to the beautiful objects it's filled with. It looks great, but as soon as you get close, you see how crude and garish it actually is. Still, a fascinating visit and well worth an hour or so.
It's as crazy inside as out.
OK, remember that swimming pool? That's where we went for lunch. They drained it, and filled it with antique shops and a rather fabulous little restaurant, the Alcazar. There's something wonderfully surreal about sitting on the bottom of a swimming pool to eat, especially when a guitarist starts playing show tunes in a flamenco style. The beef and vegetable soup was thick and nourishing, and just what I needed. I followed with blackened chicken and parmesan sauce on linguini, and we finished up with a super-creamy key lime cheesecake.

The Alcazar restaurant. The water level was just below the tops of the archways.
That set us up nicely for a tour round the San Sebastian Winery. Florida wines aren't exactly the world's greatest, since muscadine grapes are so damn sweet you can't really do much with them. However, a free tour and complimentary tasting isn't something to turn down! Our guide, Stephen, was really good; he knew his stuff, and he was entertaining and informative, pitching his spiel at just the right level. As a European who's used to brewing wine in the airing cupboard, it was odd to see that they had to cool the must to bring it down to fermentation temperature, not warm it. To be honest, most of the wines weren't to my taste, but their sherry and port was extremely pleasant.

Stephen extolling the virtues of Florida port and sherry.
We finished off the day at our two favourite places, the Tasting Room and Stogies. I've talked about them before, so I'll just say that they were as good as always. After the tasting at the winery, we were already a little tipsy, and then we moved on to tasting more champagnes and Spanish reds, then ports. I think we must have sampled nearly two dozen drinks and a dozen dishes that day. Perfect. We ended the evening out on our balcony at midnight, looking out over St Augustine and dreaming of coming here again when we can afford it.

Our balcony at the Casa de Solana, a charming B&B.
We took the scenic route home, and went via Anastasia Island, on the other side of the Matanzas River. I finally got to a beach in Florida: the Anastasia State Park. It was almost completely deserted, which was wonderful, and we just sat quietly looking out at the ocean and watching pelicans and other seabirds until we got hot and thirsty.

The Atlantic. Some sand. Some grass. Anna.
We then stopped off at Stir It Up, a little hippie surfer food place by the beach, and gorged ourselves on organic quesadillas and enormous turkey sandwiches and totally yummy smoothies. It's the kind of place you'd drive right by if you didn't know it was there, and quite frankly, that's a good thing. If lots of people found it, it'd get all popular and wouldn't be neartly so good. In fact, forget I mentioned it. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along now.

This is the only clue you get. If you can find this place, eat there.
We carried on down the coast, making just one more stop, the delightful Washington Oaks State Gardens. There was a special deal over the weekend, and all State Parks were free to anyone with a Florida library card, which is kinda cool. It combines natural riverside habitat with formal gardens, and was absolutely filled with gloriously coloured butterflies. Anna was entranced by an enormous grey grass carp: it's the largest of the minnow family, and really rather impressive. We stayed there and relaxed in the shade by the water for a while, until finally it was time to head off back down I-95 to Winter Park and real life.

The only place I know that compares to this for sheer beauty is Rudyard Lake.
Despite not feeling at my best, it was a thoroughly enjoyable few days. I suspect we'll be doing this again for future birthday/wedding anniversary celebrations, until we can afford to buy the house we both want so much.
There are loads more pictures on Anna's Flickr site, and shortly on mine too.