An itinerary · arranged for Anna

The Old
City

St. Augustine · Friday, September 18
Founded 1565 · Sunset 7:23 PM

The oldest city in the country, for one day, with nothing left for you to decide. Every stop below is already booked, mapped, and pointed at. Your only job is to look up.

Tap any stop for directions. Or open the whole route once and let the phone drive.

◆ Open the whole day in Maps
461years old
219steps up
0decisions

Driver's notes · where the car goes

She doesn't need to read this part. The car moves exactly three times all day.

A
Lighthouse — free lot on site. 100 Red Cox Dr. Park, climb, drive five minutes to lunch. Directions →
B
The Floridian — its own lot. 485 Old Beach Rd. Still on the island; the bridge comes after lunch. Directions →
C
Downtown — the city garage, once, and done. Historic Downtown Parking Facility, 1 Cordova St. Open 24 hours, 1,200 spaces, $20 per entry before 5 PM. Pull in around 1:30 and the car doesn't move again until after dinner — Flagler is a 5-minute walk, St. George Street is 2, the fort is 5, Columbia is 4. Do not try to beat this with street parking; nobody has, ever. Directions →

Fallback for dinner only: Columbia has a private lot behind the restaurant — two hours free once you check in at the host stand, $7.50/hr after. Not needed if the car's already in the garage.

1

8:00 AM · Depart

The Drive Out

College Park → the coast · 105 miles · about 1 h 50 m

Up I-4, then the long green run north with the ocean somewhere off to the right the whole way. One coffee stop is permitted and expected.

Note from the driverMusic is yours. Obviously. I'll handle the left lane; you supervise.
Route
2

10:00 AM · The Climb

Booked

St. Augustine Lighthouse

100 Red Cox Drive · Anastasia Island · open 9–6

First lit in 1874 and still working — 165 feet of brick under that black-and-white spiral, which exists so sailors could tell it apart from every other tower on the coast. Two hundred and nineteen steps to the gallery, where you can see all the way to the inlet the Spanish came through in 1565.

Why we're here219 steps. You covered 48.6 miles in four days. I will be the one breathing hard, and you are not allowed to enjoy it.
Map Directions
3

Noon · Lunch

The Floridian

485 Old Beach Road · Anastasia Island · 5 minutes from the lighthouse

Farm-to-table Southern cooking from a kitchen that names its farms. Still on the island, which means we eat before we cross the bridge — one crossing, then the car stays parked for the rest of the day.

Why we're hereLocal, unfussy, and unhurried. We have exactly nowhere to be until two.
Map Directions
4

2:00 PM · The Tour · meet at 1:45

Booked

Flagler College
the Hotel Ponce de León

74 King Street · meet in the Rotunda · about an hour

Henry Flagler built it in 1888 as the most extravagant hotel in America — Spanish Renaissance towers, a dining hall lit through the largest collection of Tiffany stained glass in the world, and electricity wired in by Thomas Edison's own company back when guests were too afraid to touch the switches. Today it's a college. The students eat lunch under the Tiffany windows.

Why we're hereA room built for light and sound, and a woman who sings soprano. If you hum in the dining hall, I won't tell anyone. I might record it.
Map Directions
5

The Loose Afternoon

After three: nothing booked, on purpose. The old town is a few hundred yards across and made for walking, and you told me once that you need to be moving. Four places worth wandering into, in any order, or none of them.

The Plaza & the Cathedral Basilica

38 Cathedral Place · on the Plaza de la Constitución

The plaza was laid out in 1573 — the oldest public square in the country. The cathedral on its edge belongs to the oldest parish in the United States, founded 1565 with the city itself; the building standing now dates to 1797. Both are open to anyone who walks in.

Why we're hereThe oldest parish in America. Take the minute if you want it. I'll find the shade.
Map Walk

Castillo de San Marcos

1 South Castillo Drive · on the bay · open until about 5:15

The Spanish spent twenty-three years, from 1672 to 1695, building it out of coquina — a stone made of compressed seashells. When the British shelled it, the cannonballs sank into the walls instead of shattering them. It was never taken by force. Oldest masonry fort in the country, and the view from the gun deck is the best free seat in town.

Why we're hereA fort that couldn't be broken because the walls were made of seashells. There's a sermon in that. That's your department, not mine.
Map Walk

Mission Nombre de Dios & the Great Cross

27 Ocean Avenue · a short walk north of the fort · grounds are free

This is where it started. Pedro Menéndez came ashore here on September 8, 1565, and the first Mass in what would become the first permanent European settlement in the United States was said on this ground. The Great Cross — 208 feet of stainless steel — went up in 1966 to mark four hundred years. The little ivy-covered chapel beside it is the oldest shrine to Mary in the country.

Why we're hereFour hundred and sixty-one years of people praying on the same patch of ground. Go stand there. I'll be right behind you.
Map Walk
6

6:30 PM · Golden Hour

The Bridge of Lions

Where King Street meets the bay · walk it, don't drive it

Opened in 1927 and guarded on the town side by two Carrara marble lions, copies of the Medici lions in Florence. Stand at the middle at the right hour and you get the whole bay going gold, sailboats swinging on their moorings, and — look south — the lighthouse we climbed this morning, starting to blink.

Why we're hereSunset is 7:23. Dinner is three blocks from the west end of this bridge. We are going to be exactly on time and it's going to feel like luck.
Map
7

7:00 PM · Dinner

Booked

Columbia Restaurant

98 St. George Street · reservation for two at seven

The Columbia family has been feeding Florida since 1905. Hand-painted Spanish tile, a courtyard with a fountain, lanterns in the arches, and a salad they've been tossing tableside for more than a century. Order the 1905 Salad. It's the whole show, and it's tossed at the table.

Why we're hereA table at seven in a room older than anyone we know, after a day in a city older than the country. Then we don't hurry.
Map Walk

Then the drive home in the dark, which is the best part of any day trip. You pick the music again. Fall asleep if you want to. I've got it.

— B.

Arranged with care · booked in advance · nothing for you to do but show up
Walking shoes · sunscreen (you'll forget, so I packed it) · no notes