Castillo de San Marcos, FL
Velma: Every place we go, we have to check out the forts. St. Augustine has two: Fort Matanzas (the name means "massacre"), and Castillo de San Marcos. The Castillo was constructed over a period of 23 years--from 1672 to 1695--largely of coquina (a type of limestone: "Coquina is mainly composed of mineral calcite, often including some phosphate, in the form of seashells or coral. It is found in surface exposures along the east coast of Florida from St. Johns County to Palm Beach County. It may occur up to 20 miles inland from the coast in the sub-surface." (According to Wikipedia.) Apparently, the stuff is virtually indestructbile, because the fort has been there for 300 years, in spite of enemy attacks and wicked storms.
We didn't go to Fort Matanzas. We were too busy riding around checking out possible housing sites, but that's another story.
Castillo de San Marcos
Prisoners went in the corner
Bridge is over to the right
Let's take out the Dennys!
Eric: Yup, this sure is an old fort. What's nice is you get to explore every nook and cranny of the place. Not even sure what castillo de san marcos even means. When you're female side kick says "I wanna see the fort", you're better off taking her there and doing another lap around the historic downtown shops.
It's either that or be forced to sit on one of those trolley tours. Cripes, them benches are hard. It's like your jostled around, side to side in one of them things while your butt slides around on the piece of metal. Was I supposed to be talking about that fort? Oh yea..
So it's neat sneaking around there. You start to image what it was like living in a thing like this, hundreds of years ago. I suppose it would be like being stuck on that trolley tour for months on end.
Address: 1 South Castillo Drive, St. Augustine, FL
Phone: (904) 829-6506
GPS: N 29ª 53.868' - W 81ª 18.702'