FLORIDA: Giant natives and Spanish dwarves…

It’s time to get to grips with the history of Florida’s most historic city. Bev Fearis and family jump on the trolley bus to check out the highlights.

We’re up early and on the first trolley bus of the day to the Fountain of Youth. It’s a quaint little attraction in a pretty 15-acre waterfront park and is believed to be the spot where Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles first set foot on the coast of Florida in 1565.

For 4,000 or so years before that, it was home to a settlement of Timucuan Indians. According to the history books, the Timucuans were 6-7ft tall and, on average, lived to the ripe old age of 80. The Spanish, on the other hand, were an average 4ft 9ins tall and only lived to 50. Why those mighty Timucuans didn’t use their strength and vitality to fight off the Spanish is a mystery, but instead they welcomed these strange dwarf-like people and, 50 years later, let them settle on their land.

Sadly, around 75% of the Timucuan population was then wiped out by the arrival of various European diseases.

I learnt all this, and more, from a guide at the first exhibit of the attraction where I was also invited to drink a cup of the water from the famed Fountain of Youth, which is believed to be responsible for the Timucuans’ long lives. I didn’t immediately notice any wrinkles disappearing, but it was only a small cup.

We took a stroll through the park, home to peacocks (even a few albino ones), shady oaks and a native Timucuan Village, where reenactors in full costume were giving a few school groups a lighthearted lesson about Indian village life.

We also popped over to nearby Magnolia Street, which we’d driven down on the trolley bus tour the previous day. National Geographic rates it as one of the most photographed streets in the US, but not for its magnolias (they died out many years ago) but for its majestic oaks, adorned with Spanish Moss which have taken over and have created a natural canopy. We just had to get a photo.

With a tight schedule to keep to, we left the park and took the trolley bus to the Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest masonry fort and the best-preserved example of a Spanish colonial fort in the US.  We wanted to get there in time to watch the 11am canon firing. Three times a day, volunteers in full Spanish artillery costumes gather on the gun deck and re-enact the canon firing ritual. We were advised to cover our ears, and it was good advice. Bang.

Click here to watch part of the canon firing ceremony

Lunch was at Meehans on Matanzas, an Irish pub and restaurant across the road, that does fabulous seafood sandwiches and peppery fries, and some Irish favourites like Colcannon too. I had the Po-Bo Sandwich, which I would later discover is a staple on the menus of many Floridian restaurants. It’s a classic ‘Southern-style’ sandwich, with fried shrimp or oyster, shredded lettuce, tomato and homemade remoulade sauce. Mine was with deep fried oysters and they were beautifully light.

After lunch we were heading just a few blocks away to the St Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum, but it’s worth a whole separate blog, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear all about it…

www.visitflorida.com

www.floridashistoriccoast.com

Read Bev’s review of the St George’s Inn hotel in St Augustine here.