Area residents and their guests can easily find entertaining ways to fill happy December days right here in Lady Lake and The Villages — with tree lightings, parades, concerts, shows and parties galore — but if one hankers for a very different kind of day trip, or nice weekend away, St. Augustine glows at Holiday times.
National Geographic magazine dubbed the nation’s oldest city’s ‘Nights of Light’ downtown holiday display , and its historic landmarks , one of the ten best places to spend the Holidays in the world! The World! Wow!
That being said — Freedom Pointe resident, Sylvia Wagner, who lived in St. Augustine for 11 years before moving to The Villages with her now deceased husband, Warren, 12 years ago, and Gail Harris, who still maintains a seaside condo there, will tell you a visit to St. Augustine is well worth the easy 120-mile drive north from The Villages.
The Christmas light display, which is illuminated the day after Thanksgiving and is maintained through February, draws over a million American and foreign visitors each winter to St. Augustine.
Touring St. Augustine with these ‘insiders,’ who know every alley and nook, avoids some of the tourist traffic and signal lights ; but whether one drives or walks around the town — by day or night — hires a horse-drawn carriage or hops on and off one of the tandem trolleys, the list of points of interest seems endless. The beach, with its oceanside eateries, yacht mooring s and fishing fleet is picturesque, and the salt air is cool and refreshing.
After several failed attempts by French and Spanish explorers, Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles came ashore to found St. Augustine in 1565. Over the next hundred years, nine fortifications were built throughout the settlement, and El Castillo de San Marcos, remains today. The fortress was completed in 1695 by Native American laborers and workers brought from Havana Cuba. Its construction is of coquina, a very resilient composite material, similar to limestone, made of small seashells that have bonded together.
After a brief period of British control and many battles, St. Augustine and environs was finally ceded to the United States by Spain in 1819. On any tour of the city’s landmarks, the words ‘the oldest’ are seen over and over: including the oldest wooden school house, the oldest shrine to the Virgin Mary, the oldest drug store, Â the oldest archaeologic park in North America , etc. The guestbook at Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park has signatures dating back to 1868. Peacocks roam the acreage freely. De Leon believed St. Augustine’s waters were the fabled fountain of youth, but we all know that’s really located at Spanish Springs in The Villages.
The urban campus of Flagler College, a private four-year liberal arts school, contributes standout  ‘old-Spanish’ architecture to the city. It centers around the original Ponce de Leon Hotel, built in 1888 by Henry Morrison Flagler, a noted industrialist, oil magnate and railroad pioneer of the era. Flagler was a major key to growth of this city, which he promoted as a warm winter resort for the wealthy northern elite. He enticed them to abandon ice and snow and transported them south in his specially outfitted luxury railroad cars.
Old churches and landmarks around town hold significant meaning for Catholics and other Christians — Â and the distinctive lighthouse offers a cool view — up 219 steps — of the seaside town.
Today’s lighthouse, St. Augustine’s oldest brick structure, has been restored to the black and white spiral colors of the 1888 beacon. The saga began as a series of Spanish watch towers in the late 1500s and is noteworthy as the site of the oldest permanent navigation aid in North America. Standing 165 feet above sea level, the current lighthouse is made of Alabama brick and iron work from Philadelphia and is topped by a hand-blown nine-foot Fresnel lens imported from Paris, France.
So, why not head north for a dose of salty air; fresh seafood and hush puppies, and imbibe a pleasant chapter in American colonial culture as well? For first time visitors of all ages, the trip is memorable; but those who return again and again always find something new they never noticed before.
