This morning we all enjoyed a full breakfast in the hotel’s small restaurant – fruit and juice, a buffet of typical breakfast items, plus made-to-order eggs and omelets.
We
then gathered in our meeting room where Dianne, dressed in an appropriate
period costume, gave a lecture on the early Spanish Colonial history of the
Florida coast.
We then boarded two
small tour busses that took us into the city.
We transferred to a trolley for a seventy minute narrated
tour of the city, providing us with an excellent overview of the sites and
history of America’s oldest city.
We will be returning to many of these places later in the week.
We stopped at the train depot, now part
of the trolley tour agency, for a box lunch before reboarding the train for our
next destination.
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| View from the tram of one of historic churches. |
Next on the schedule – our exploration of the Fountain of
Youth Archaeological Park, located on the site claimed to be Ponce de Leon’s
landing place on April 3, 1513, and the location of the first and oldest
continuous European settlement in the United States. We all sipped from the pre-historic Indian Spring that
Ponce de Leon hoped was his Fountain of Youth; unfortunately none of us noticed
any immediate changes to our wrinkles or other signs of aging! The park is filled with history –
ongoing archeological excavations of the original colony, a replica of an
Indian church currently being constructed, cannon and musket firing
demonstrations, a reconstructed native Timucua village with costumed interpreters, even a planetarium show
that explains how the explorers used the stars for guidance as they crossed the
ocean waters.
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| Ellie and Andrea pose with Ponce de Leon. |
The busses returned us to the hotel in the late afternoon
where we had enough time to relax or spend time at the pool and hot tub.
I opted for a walk on the wide beautiful
beach, watching the surfers and families enjoying the waves and warm
temperatures.
At 5:15 we all
walked a short distance to a local seafood restaurant for dinner where many of
us enjoyed their signature fried shrimp dinner.
After dinner, while it stormed
outside, we enjoyed a presentation of a 16th Century “Comedia” with
Dianne and two members of her drama troupe – a fun ending to a very busy
day.
This morning we all enjoyed a full breakfast in the hotel’s small restaurant – fruit and juice, a buffet of typical breakfast items, plus made-to-order eggs and omelets. We
then gathered in our meeting room where Dianne, dressed in an appropriate
period costume, gave a lecture on the early Spanish Colonial history of the
Florida coast. We then boarded two
small tour busses that took us into the city. We transferred to a trolley for a seventy minute narrated
tour of the city, providing us with an excellent overview of the sites and
history of America’s oldest city.
We will be returning to many of these places later in the week. We stopped at the train depot, now part
of the trolley tour agency, for a box lunch before reboarding the train for our
next destination. 
The busses returned us to the hotel in the late afternoon
where we had enough time to relax or spend time at the pool and hot tub. I opted for a walk on the wide beautiful
beach, watching the surfers and families enjoying the waves and warm
temperatures. At 5:15 we all
walked a short distance to a local seafood restaurant for dinner where many of
us enjoyed their signature fried shrimp dinner.
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