Florida city hides a secret Spanish past

Bird’s eye view: the St Augustine Lighthouse and Museum offers breathtaking views of the coast

St augustine by Alan Moore

Florida city hides a secret Spanish past

Region provides insight into times gone by

AT 7am, the bright orange sunrise was already breaking through the warm mist and illuminating the huge dewy webs formed round the arches of the blue and white-painted boardwalk.

No-one was around, but a brew of coffee and freshly baked raisin bread were ready by the kitchen door, and I took them to my rocking chair on the creaky, plant-filled balcony.

I appreciated being able to linger for a while before contemplating a proper breakfast and the day ahead. My bed-and-breakfast host, Walt James, had cycled into town to collect the newspapers, and on his return joined me for coffee and a chat.

He and his wife Pam run the six-bedroom Penny Farthing Inn, in St Augustine in northeast Florida, and the reason behind the name of this 1890 Victorian clapboard home is Walt’s passion for cycling.

Out on his front porch is a penny-farthing, and Walt and his bike are a regular sight on the streets of this fascinating town that can rightfully claim to have a place in America’s earliest history books.

In fact, St Augustine was founded in 1565 – 42 years before the English colonised Jamestown, Virginia, and 55 years prior to the Pilgrims’ historic landing at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts.

Located in a wild and sometimes wind-swept corner of Atlantic Florida, St Augustine’s early existence was heavily influenced by Spanish explorers, its main attraction is an 11-block area of 18th-century Spanish colonial houses in narrow streets on a peninsula linked by the main bricked pedestrian thoroughfare of St George Street.

They have been sympathetically restored and some are now trading as souvenir shops, galleries and bars. For me, a more interesting historic area of the town is the recreation of Old St Augustine Village in St George Street.

This part of the old walled town is the location of the original 16th-century settlement and 11 houses and stores from the Spanish and Victorian eras have been positioned there.

Landscaped in a rambling Victorian garden setting, they include the 1790 pink cottage of Napoleon’s nephew, Prince Murat, and the homes of early authors.

In fact, as you wander around this compact town, with its terracotta skyline of Spanish mission-style architecture, you are left in little doubt about the veracity of the claim that St Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the US.