Saint Augustine, Florida, USA

Back to the Beginnings of Hispanic Florida


The Bridge of Lions
Bridge view
Casa Mónica, the House of Shadows
The Front of the Castle
Under the Ice Wind
Make-believe Commander
The Castle of San Marco
By Drawbridge
The Distillery
Palm Tree Bastion
Shadows to Defense
The cathedral
The Portico
Ponce Indica
The Flagler College
On the Windy High
The Flagler II College
The Confederate Manif
Tropical Time Tower
The Tropical Weather
The dissemination of tourist attractions of questionable taste becomes superficial if we take into account the historical depth in question. This is the longest inhabited city in the contiguous US. Ever since Spanish explorers founded it in 1565, St. Augustine resists almost anything.

North Florida welcomes us with a weather that is at odds with the one that attracts so many North American retirees to have homes there and spend their winters there.

A powerful cold front invades the subtropical south of the United States. It freezes you with a frigid wind that stirs the sea offshore, the Salt Run channel and the sea and river arms shared between the Atlantic and the Matanzas River.

It catches us by surprise and without matching clothes. We react with plans to stay hyperactive. From walking as much as possible, to discovering the city and its surroundings.

We quickly realized its enigmatic character, a mix between a grand historical legacy, an enchanting universe and a perennial Christmas fantasy.

We chose to enter St. Augustine, on foot, crossing its majestic drawbridge of the Lions.

As we do so, the wind lashes across the Matanzas' teal waters.

Generates surface turbulence that resembles rapids.

Above, flocks of brown pelicans are tormented by the force of the gusts that make the precise dives that keep them fed unfeasible.

We reached the middle of the bridge. A red traffic light, reinforced by an audible warning, prevents us from continuing.

The middle of the bridge rises to accommodate two fishing boats with tall masts. A gadelhudo cyclist is trapped in the same wait.

He dismounts from the bicycle and admires the passage of the trawlers.

The boats add up to the sides of the Tolomato River and the bar because that entire inland river system leaks into the ocean. The bridge goes down again.

Its top point gives us an approaching glimpse of old Saint Augustine.

On the tallest building in the city, former Treasury building and former Wells Fargo bank, now Treasury on the Plaza – cataloged by the Americans as a Mediterranean Revival style – and which serves as a screen for most of the houses.

Several towers flank it, some with conical roofs.

This unusual horizon takes the city back to somewhere between reality and fable.

The more we go through it, the more strange it is.

We arrive at the western end, where the bridge adjusts to the sea level to which St. Augustine.

Ponce de León, Pedro Menéndez de Aviléz and the Spanish Conquistadors of Florida

Nearby, a whole circle tropicalized by leafy palm trees and a projected statue of him pay homage to Juan Ponce de León, the Spanish conqueror.

Even if his pioneering spirit remains controversial, de León is considered the leader of the first expedition to the Florida region.

We approach the base of the almost skyscraper Treasury on the Plaza and a flag stars n' stripes that the wind keeps it rigid.

The imposing barrier of the building encourages us to head north, towards the historic district of the city.

St. Augustine was founded in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Aviléz. later appointed by King Philip II, Captain of the Fleet of the Indies.

By that time, the North American Atlantic coast was disputed between Spaniards, French and, soon, British and Dutch.

The Florida territory, in particular, was the subject of frequent battles with the French, apart from usual rivals, Huguenots and Lutherans whom the Spaniards considered despicable heretics.

French attacks from the neighboring Fort Caroline (built on the banks of the St. Johns River) and British privateers became a risk that Menéndez de Aviléz's successors were determined to avoid.

The Greed of Colonial Rivals and the Construction of Fort San Marcos

Accordingly, 107 years after its founding, Francisco de La Guerra, Menéndez de Aviléz's successor, decreed the reinforcement of its defense and the construction of the fortress we were about to encounter.

A little more than a meter above the flow of the Matanzas, a battery of cannons of increasing sizes precedes a hedge of palm trees, under one of the turrets of the castle of São Marcos.

The military engineer Ignacio Daza made it quadrangular, each edge with its prominent bastion, surrounded by a moat that only a drawbridge allows us to cross.

We went up to the fort's adarve.

From its top, we detect the curious anachronism of one of the US Rangers responsible for the National Monument, talking to an extra military commander from the colonial era.

When the time for the ensuing performance arrived, the creak leaves the table they shared. Add yourself to the castle corridors.

Sheltered from the cold with historical accuracy, the commander opens an explanatory speech that takes us and a few other spectators back to the time of the colonization of the Americas.

When the actor ends the performance, we take a peek at the last corners of the castle.

After that we moved to the newer and more contemporary area of ​​St. Augustine.

In the centuries following the completion of the Castle of São Marcos, the enemies found themselves in trouble to take it.

Often, frustrated, they favored the destruction of the city around them.

The British, in particular, who held most of what is now the United States to the north, including Georgia, were keen to leave it ablaze.

Saint Augustine and its Unusual Colonial Shuttle

In such a way that, in 1763, after two centuries as the capital of Spanish Florida, the Spaniards ended up giving in and passing it on to British rule.

After another twenty years, as a result of a military agreement, they returned it to its origins.

It was the year 1819, when the Spaniards ceded Florida to the newly emancipated USA. Saint Augustine was the capital of the state of Florida for just three years.

In 1824, the capital moved to Tallahassee.

The city lost its political prominence. She conquered several other attributes that keep her in stardom.

On the Wrong Side of the American Civil War

In 1840, St. Augustine had about 56.000 inhabitants, half of whom were slaves of African origin. On the scene of the American Civil War, Florida rejected the Union.

Aligned with slavery, it joined the Confederacy. At the end of the conflict, the Union took over the city.

Many of its landlords and slaves fled. St. Augustine saw already obvious social and economic predicaments aggravated.

Until he entered the providential Flagler Age.

Enter Saint Augustine and Henry Flagler Scene

We began to find out who Henry Flagler was at the door of the homonymous and magnanimous college. There we come across a small demonstration around the statue that honors him.

A group of men and women from the neo-Confederate movement, evokes HK Edgerton, an African-American, of the main defenders that the Confederates were not and are not racist and that, according to his words “there was a feeling of family that united the whites and blacks under slavery...

“A great love between the African who served in the lands of the South and his Master”.

Edgerton further argues that "slavery provided an institution of learning for blacks".

The question in question leaves us astonished.

As if that weren't enough, one of the protesters is African-American. He wears a Confederate uniform. He holds a Confederate flag.

The Rejuvenation of Saint Augustine

From the top of his pedestal, with his hand in his trouser pocket, a bronze Flagler looks down on everything.

Flagler – along with Rockefeler – was one of the co-founders of Standard Oil Company, an undertaking that made him a multimillionaire.

Now, in the winter of 1883, the tycoon visited St. Augustine, was enchanted by the city.

He planned to equip it with everything it needed to function as a winter shelter for wealthy Americans, eager to escape the cold.

Gradually, he connected it to the north and, later, to Palm Beach and Miami, via rail lines bundled into the Florida East Coast Railway.

Soon, he had two of his biggest hotels built in the city, the Ponce de León and the Alcazar, in Hispanic Revival and Moorish styles.

Your investment paid off in full. Americans on their way to south florida beaches started making a stopover in St. Augustine. Many have become accustomed to vacationing in the city.

Over time, the elegant Hotel Ponce de León lost its place in the increasingly competitive and modernized hotel market.

In 1968, the authorities transformed it into the college that we explore on a guided tour.

Two of its privileged young students lead a group of onlookers through the establishment's mystical, sometimes surreal nooks and crannies, hall after hall, from the library to the dining room, in an unusual domain of hocus pocus worthy of Harry Potter and company.

Around it, other buildings erected by Flagler, or purchased and converted by him – the Mónica, the Lightner Museum and, separately, the Cathedral Basilica.

All illuminated by a myriad of tiny lights, they reinforce St. Augustine.

Its grid of centuries-old streets is full of flags, banners and signs that, more than confirming its antiquity, impose the souvenirs, trinkets and snacks that renew the vigorous local economy.

They inhabit the supposedly oldest house in the village, large dolls in bonnets.

A pirate museum brings together the history of Caribbean piracy.

Rum, craft beer and chocolate tastings are promoted.

The alligator park appears side by side with the Lighthouse and the Maritime Museum. The old St. Augustine dazzles anyone who discovers her.

As long as you don't arrive in search of immaculate genuineness.

Little Havana, USA

Little Havana of the Nonconformists

Over the decades and until today, thousands of Cubans have crossed the Florida Straits in search of the land of freedom and opportunity. With the US a mere 145 km away, many have gone no further. His Little Havana in Miami is today the most emblematic neighborhood of the Cuban diaspora.
Miami beach, USA

The Beach of All Vanities

Few coastlines concentrate, at the same time, so much heat and displays of fame, wealth and glory. Located in the far southeast of the USA, Miami Beach is accessed by six bridges that connect it to the rest of Florida. It is manifestly meager for the number of souls who desire it.
Miami, USA

A Masterpiece of Urban Rehabilitation

At the turn of the 25st century, the Wynwood neighbourhood remained filled with abandoned factories and warehouses and graffiti. Tony Goldman, a shrewd real estate investor, bought more than XNUMX properties and founded a mural park. Much more than honoring graffiti there, Goldman founded the Wynwood Arts District, the great bastion of creativity in Miami.
Kennedy Space Center, Florida, United States

The American Space Program Launch Pad

Traveling through Florida, we deviated from the programmed orbit. We point to the Atlantic coast of Merrit Island and Cape Canaveral. There we explored the Kennedy Space Center and followed one of the launches that Space X and the United States are now aiming for in Space.
Florida Keys, USA

The Caribbean Stepping Stone of the USA

Os United States continental islands seem to close to the south in its capricious peninsula of Florida. Don't stop there. More than a hundred islands of coral, sand and mangroves form an eccentric tropical expanse that has long seduced American vacationers.
Key West, United States

Hemingway's Caribbean Playground

Effusive as ever, Ernest Hemingway called Key West "the best place I've ever been...". In the tropical depths of the contiguous US, he found evasion and crazy, drunken fun. And the inspiration to write with intensity to match.
San Juan, Puerto Rico (Part 2)

To the Rhythm of Reggaeton

Restless and inventive Puerto Ricans have made San Juan the reggaeton capital of the world. At the preferred beat of the nation, they filled their “Walled City” with other arts, color and life.
San Juan, Puerto Rico

The Highly Walled Puerto Rico of San Juan Bautista

San Juan is the second oldest colonial city in the Americas, after the Dominican neighbor of Santo Domingo. A pioneering emporium and stop over on the route that took gold and silver from the New World to Spain, it was attacked again and again. Its incredible fortifications still protect one of the most lively and prodigious capitals in the Caribbean.
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

The Longest Colonial Elder in the Americas

Santo Domingo is the longest-inhabited colony in the New World. Founded in 1498 by Bartholomew Colombo, the capital of the Dominican Republic preserves intact a true treasure of historical resilience.
Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, lions
Safari
NP Gorongosa, Mozambique

The Wild Heart of Mozambique shows Signs of Life

Gorongosa was home to one of the most exuberant ecosystems in Africa, but from 1980 to 1992 it succumbed to the Civil War waged between FRELIMO and RENAMO. Greg Carr, Voice Mail's millionaire inventor received a message from the Mozambican ambassador to the UN challenging him to support Mozambique. For the good of the country and humanity, Carr pledged to resurrect the stunning national park that the Portuguese colonial government had created there.
Aurora lights up the Pisang Valley, Nepal.
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 3rd- Upper Banana, Nepal

An Unexpected Snowy Aurora

At the first glimmers of light, the sight of the white mantle that had covered the village during the night dazzles us. With one of the toughest walks on the Annapurna Circuit ahead of us, we postponed the match as much as possible. Annoyed, we left Upper Pisang towards Escort when the last snow faded.
Itamaraty Palace Staircase, Brasilia, Utopia, Brazil
Architecture & Design
Brasilia, Brazil

Brasília: from Utopia to the Capital and Political Arena of Brazil

Since the days of the Marquis of Pombal, there has been talk of transferring the capital to the interior. Today, the chimera city continues to look surreal but dictates the rules of Brazilian development.
Salto Angel, Rio that falls from the sky, Angel Falls, PN Canaima, Venezuela
Adventure
PN Canaima, Venezuela

Kerepakupai, Salto Angel: The River that Falls from Heaven

In 1937, Jimmy Angel landed a light aircraft on a plateau lost in the Venezuelan jungle. The American adventurer did not find gold but he conquered the baptism of the longest waterfall on the face of the Earth
shadow of success
Ceremonies and Festivities
Champoton, Mexico

Rodeo Under Sombreros

Champoton, in Campeche, hosts a fair honored by the Virgén de La Concepción. O rodeo Mexican under local sombreros reveals the elegance and skill of the region's cowboys.
Nigatsu Temple, Nara, Japan
Cities
Nara, Japan

Buddhism vs Modernism: The Double Face of Nara

In the 74th century AD Nara was the Japanese capital. During XNUMX years of this period, emperors erected temples and shrines in honor of the Budismo, the newly arrived religion from across the Sea of ​​Japan. Today, only these same monuments, secular spirituality and deer-filled parks protect the city from the inexorable encirclement of urbanity.
Singapore Asian Capital Food, Basmati Bismi
Meal
Singapore

The Asian Food Capital

There were 4 ethnic groups in Singapore, each with its own culinary tradition. Added to this was the influence of thousands of immigrants and expatriates on an island with half the area of ​​London. It was the nation with the greatest gastronomic diversity in the Orient.
MassKara Festival, Bacolod City, Philippines
Culture
Bacolod, Philippines

A Festival to Laugh at Tragedy

Around 1980, the value of sugar, an important source of wealth on the Philippine island of Negros, plummeted and the ferry “Don Juan” that served it sank and took the lives of more than 176 passengers, most of them from Negrès. The local community decided to react to the depression generated by these dramas. That's how MassKara arose, a party committed to recovering the smiles of the population.
Swimming, Western Australia, Aussie Style, Sun rising in the eyes
Sport
Busselton, Australia

2000 meters in Aussie Style

In 1853, Busselton was equipped with one of the longest pontoons in the world. World. When the structure collapsed, the residents decided to turn the problem around. Since 1996 they have been doing it every year. Swimming.
Train Fianarantsoa to Manakara, Malagasy TGV, locomotive
Traveling
Fianarantsoa-Manakara, Madagascar

On board the Malagasy TGV

We depart Fianarantsoa at 7a.m. It wasn't until 3am the following morning that we completed the 170km to Manakara. The natives call this almost secular train Train Great Vibrations. During the long journey, we felt, very strongly, those of the heart of Madagascar.
Islamic silhouettes
Ethnic

Istanbul, Turkey

Where East meets West, Turkey Seeks its Way

An emblematic and grandiose metropolis, Istanbul lives at a crossroads. As Turkey in general, divided between secularism and Islam, tradition and modernity, it still doesn't know which way to go

View of Fa Island, Tonga, Last Polynesian Monarchy
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Got2Globe Portfolio

Exotic Signs of Life

Gray roofs, Lijiang, Yunnan, China
History
Lijiang, China

A Gray City but Little

Seen from afar, its vast houses are dreary, but Lijiang's centuries-old sidewalks and canals are more folkloric than ever. This city once shone as the grandiose capital of the Naxi people. Today, floods of Chinese visitors who fight for the quasi-theme park it have become take it by storm.
View from the top of Mount Vaea and the tomb, Vailima village, Robert Louis Stevenson, Upolu, Samoa
Islands
Upolu, Samoa

Stevenson's Treasure Island

At age 30, the Scottish writer began looking for a place to save him from his cursed body. In Upolu and the Samoans, he found a welcoming refuge to which he gave his heart and soul.
Era Susi towed by dog, Oulanka, Finland
Winter White
PN Oulanka, Finland

A Slightly Lonesome Wolf

Jukka “Era-Susi” Nordman has created one of the largest packs of sled dogs in the world. He became one of Finland's most iconic characters but remains faithful to his nickname: Wilderness Wolf.
Cove, Big Sur, California, United States
Literature
Big Sur, USA

The Coast of All Refuges

Over 150km, the Californian coast is subjected to a vastness of mountains, ocean and fog. In this epic setting, hundreds of tormented souls follow in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and Henri Miller.
Aurora, Pico do Arieiro to Pico Ruivo, Madeira Island, Portugal
Nature
Pico do Arieiro - Pico Ruivo, Madeira, Portugal

Pico Arieiro to Pico Ruivo, Above a Sea of ​​Clouds

The journey begins with a resplendent dawn at 1818 m, high above the sea of ​​clouds that snuggles the Atlantic. This is followed by a winding, ups and downs walk that ends on the lush insular summit of Pico Ruivo, 1861 meters away.
Sheki, Autumn in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Autumn Homes
Autumn
Sheki, Azerbaijan

autumn in the caucasus

Lost among the snowy mountains that separate Europe from Asia, Sheki is one of Azerbaijan's most iconic towns. Its largely silky history includes periods of great harshness. When we visited it, autumn pastels added color to a peculiar post-Soviet and Muslim life.
Van at Jossingfjord, Magma Geopark, Norway
Natural Parks
Magma Geopark, Norway

A Somehow Lunar Norway

If we went back to the geological ends of time, we would find southwestern Norway filled with huge mountains and a burning magma that successive glaciers would shape. Scientists have found that the mineral that predominates there is more common on the Moon than on Earth. Several of the scenarios we explore in the region's vast Magma Geopark seem to be taken from our great natural satellite.
Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mayan History, heads of Kukulkan, El Castillo
UNESCO World Heritage
Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico

On the Edge of the Cenote, at the Heart of the Mayan Civilization

Between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries AD, Chichen Itza stood out as the most important city in the Yucatan Peninsula and the vast Mayan Empire. If the Spanish Conquest precipitated its decline and abandonment, modern history has consecrated its ruins a World Heritage Site and a Wonder of the World.
In elevator kimono, Osaka, Japan
Characters
Osaka, Japan

In the Company of Mayu

Japanese nightlife is a multi-faceted, multi-billion business. In Osaka, an enigmatic couchsurfing hostess welcomes us, somewhere between the geisha and the luxury escort.
Fisherman maneuvers boat near Bonete Beach, Ilhabela, Brazil
Beaches
Ilhabela, Brazil

In Ilhabela, on the way to Bonete

A community of caiçaras descendants of pirates founded a village in a corner of Ilhabela. Despite the difficult access, Bonete was discovered and considered one of the ten best beaches in Brazil.
Jerusalem God, Israel, Golden City
Religion
Jerusalem, Israel

Closer to God

Three thousand years of history as mystical as it is troubled come to life in Jerusalem. Worshiped by Christians, Jews and Muslims, this city radiates controversy but attracts believers from all over the world.
Chepe Express, Chihuahua Al Pacifico Railway
On Rails
Creel to Los Mochis, Mexico

The Barrancas del Cobre & the CHEPE Iron Horse

The Sierra Madre Occidental's relief turned the dream into a construction nightmare that lasted six decades. In 1961, at last, the prodigious Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad was opened. Its 643km cross some of the most dramatic scenery in Mexico.
Society
Military

Defenders of Their Homelands

Even in times of peace, we detect military personnel everywhere. On duty, in cities, they fulfill routine missions that require rigor and patience.
the projectionist
Daily life
Sainte-Luce, Martinique

The Nostalgic Projectionist

From 1954 to 1983, Gérard Pierre screened many of the famous films arriving in Martinique. 30 years after the closing of the room in which he worked, it was still difficult for this nostalgic native to change his reel.
Asian buffalo herd, Maguri Beel, Assam, India
Wildlife
Maguri Bill, India

A Wetland in the Far East of India

The Maguri Bill occupies an amphibious area in the Assamese vicinity of the river Brahmaputra. It is praised as an incredible habitat especially for birds. When we navigate it in gondola mode, we are faced with much (but much) more life than just the asada.
Full Dog Mushing
Scenic Flights
Seward, Alaska

The Alaskan Dog Mushing Summer

It's almost 30 degrees and the glaciers are melting. In Alaska, entrepreneurs have little time to get rich. Until the end of August, dog mushing cannot stop.
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