April 15 - A Bumpy Start then Exploring St. Augustine
We started our morning with the first "glitch" of the trip. When I woke up my DH informed me we had no water in our room at the Towneplace Suites Jacksonville East. Fortunately, we had both showered the night before, hoping to get an early start that morning. We brushed our teeth with bottled water and packed up. When we got downstairs there were very limited breakfast options since evidently the entire hotel was without water. I felt so badly for the poor young woman at the front desk who was being yelled at by a woman who "needed to take a shower!"...That poor employee was in for a long morning. We checked out and wished her luck. She ended up comping us $50 for our stay which was very appreciated. Overall despite the no water thing it was a very nice hotel.
We headed in search of something delicious and nutritious for breakfast. Okay, maybe not nutritious...but it was delicious!
Before our trip we had watched a lot of Chad Gallivanter as well as Off Our Couch Vlogs on YouTube. Both of them recommended Island Donuts so we headed to their Atlantic Beach location.
Based on YouTube recommendations, we got the pineapple coconut fritter...
and the gigantic cinnamon roll.
The pictures don't do these two treats justice. They are absolutely huge and were extremely fresh and delicious. We both agreed that these were the best "doughnut" type thing we had the whole month. So very good!
We drove to St. Augustine and parked at the Castillo de San Marcos fort. We opted not to pay the $15 per person to tour the fort but we enjoyed walking around the exterior of the fort. It was yet another spectacular weather day.
As we were walking around we heard some sort of parade and saw that there was a religious procession. I believe it was Hari Krishnas. They ended up processing down to a park in downtown St. Augustine and had a day long celebration there. It was interesting to see.
We toured the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine. It was absolutely beautiful.
And then we went on a search for the oldest street in the oldest city, Aviles Street. It took us a while to find it.
We wanted to see the street but the real reason we wanted to find it was because Chad Gallivanter and Off Our Couch both recommended Peace Pie, located on that street. For those who are unfamiliar, Peace Pie makes ice cream sandwiches with cookies, ice cream, pie filling, and topping. So, we decided to continue our nutritious day and have Peace Pie for lunch.
We ordered two to share. First, we got the Salted Caramel Apple: Cinnamon Cookie, Apple Pie Filling, Caramel, Vanilla Ice Cream.
This was really delicious. The cinnamon cookies were so flavorful as well as the apple filling, caramel and ice cream.
The second one was Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownie: Chocolate Ice Cream, Brownies, Peanut butter sauce, Chocolate Cookie
This was also excellent! My DH preferred the apple one but I preferred the chocolate peanut butter one.
After our delicious snack we drove over the Bridge of Lions to check into our first non-Marriott property, the Historic Inn of St. Augustine. I originally had booked the Fairfield Inn & Suites St. Augustine but it was quite expensive and not within walking distance so we would have had to pay for parking each day in the city. I found the Historic Inn on Priceline for a reasonable price and it had good reviews. TripAdvisor reviews were terrible but recent posters had left comments that the property had been renovated so we gave it a shot. We discovered that the property had in fact been renovated. Everything was freshly painted. It was a motel style room but it was clean and comfortable. The A/C unit was pretty loud but that was our only complaint. The best thing was that we were able to walk across the Bridge to/from the historic district.
After we checked in, we walked over the bridge and continued walking around the historic areas. Flagler College was beautiful. We didn't know we could go inside to tour it so we'll have to do it next time.
We decided to grab something quick for a late lunch/early dinner and went to another recommended spot, A1A Burrito Works Taco Shop. We ordered two UFO burritos to share, one with chicken and one with pork carnitas. Here's my plate with each half:
These were both warm, fresh, and flavorful. We also got a side of chips and salsa, which were just your standard chips and salsa.
After dinner we walked around for a bit and then went to Mass in the Cathedral. After Mass we explored a little bit more and then walked back over the bridge to our motel.
22,201 steps later we hit the hay after a beautiful day in St. Augustine.