Castillo de San Marcos

Looking out, across the Mantanzas Inlet, from the top of the fort with the Frances and Mary Usina bridge, in the background, that takes us to Vilano Beach. 

Then turn around and look! The Bridge of Lions, the draw bridge that connects us to Anastasia Island.

Behind the fort lies Abbott Tract Historic District with homes from 1861, 1885 and 1894. 

Turn, one more time, to see the Ponce de Leon Hotel/Flagler College from the top of the fort's wall. 

Amied toward the English in 1702.

Made of bronze and iron, the skilled craftsman took the time to make the gun deck ornate!

The beauty of the patina on these guns.

Imagine looking out and not seeing a bridge but seeing the English coming at you in 1702 for a 51 day siege and you outlasted them only to have the English burn the city to the ground. 

The hot shot furnace used to make the cannon balls hot and then fired into the wooden sides of ships to set the enemy warships on  fire!

The fort is made of Coquina Stone. Tiny seashells compressed into limestone over thousands of years. Locally quarried and easy to cut, coquina withstood cannon fire!

The Spanish built Castillo de San Marcos to protect St Augustine. Finished in 1695 and still standing!

We walked up to the fort, from our apartment on, National Park, free admittance day.

 

Winter Residence

Good Morning, looking out my bedroom window.

Parked the truck and headed into our apartment!

These houses were built in the early 1900s.

We have a two bedroom, two bath, upstairs unit with ten foot ceilings and a beautiful staircase with stained glass windows. 

A King Sago palm greets us upon arrival.

Didn't realize this but do they have brains?

A Sawtooth palm behind where we park.

With a huge, Live Oak dripping in Spanish Moss, blowing in the breeze. 

 

Good night!

Very different from what we are used too!

Class Act

Sitting oceanside, reading my new magazine. Does anyone remember Antiques Magazine from days gone by?

Out of the corner of my eye I see a ship passing by the lighthouse!

She's a beauty. 

Sailed, right by, in all her glory. 

 

Sea salt on my boat shoes, resting on, $175 per yard, pillow fabric topping my 5 gallon pickle bucket foot stool. 

This is the life!

Flagler College

Went for a tour of Flagler College.

Learned quite a few different aspects of the architecture. 

The who's who towards the end of the eighteen hundreds

The college started out as the Hotel Ponce de Leon, built by Henry Flagler.

Louis Comfort Tiffany contributed the leaded glass windows.

The hotel opened January 12, 1888.

Guests paid $4,000 for an entire season's stay.

Thomas Edison wired the hotel for electricity. He also created this clock, that is right twice a day, because it is embedded in the largest slab of white marble in the northern hemisphere and no one can remove the clock for repair without damaging the marble! 

Four hundred rooms with 80% of them having fireplaces.

Designed by the same men that designed the New York Public Library.

There were magnificent paintings behind the black velvet rope!

Eleven rock crystal chandeliers.

Painted canvases by George Maynard and Virgilio Tojetti.

Built with poured concrete and coquina and wired for electricity three years before the white house!!

He married three wives, one died of Tuberculosis, her care giver, the second wife, sent to an insane asylum and the last wife won the lotto when Flagler died. It was her great-nephew that saved the hotel from demolition with the money she had inherited.  

Edison used these dragon heads to illuminate the courtyard. The dragons had red glass balls in their mouths.  

Every detail had a reason. The fountain was a sundial with the twelve frogs around the base. 

Two towers holding eight thousand gallons of fresh, running, water for the guests.

The rotunda is three stories tall. There are two thousand doors and one thousand windows.

It took Henry Flagler and his buddy, John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil, two years to construct with three hundred to four hundred men working all of the time twenty four hours a day. 

The first, poured in place, concrete building in the United States. 

I feel as if I am writing a book report for school! The college student, who showed us around, would be surprised at what I could remember from his tour presentation. 

 

The Sun Is Shining

On the way to the beach we always pass
 this nature walk in the Mangroves.

We parked the truck and decided to check it out,
 hoping to see some wildlife.

It was a short trot down a boardwalk under the bridge.

We found tiled plaques of the wildlife
in the marsh!
 

The colors were saturated. Even in the bright sun I was able to get photos of the tiles, the glaze was so rich. 

They were made by the students at the
Florida School For The Deaf and Blind.

The best time to take photos are in the early morning and late afternoon. The sun bleaches the color right out! But the depth of these ceramic paintings held their light.

Just duck under the bridge and walk down into the marsh.

The canopies of Spanish Moss hang low over the roads.

I just had to show you these pictures, even thou they are over exposed, because the sun is shining!