St. Augustine has lots of similarities to Santa Fe! Sounds weird, but trust us, it's true! First, they're both tourist towns. Then, there's the whole Spanish thing with lots of walking venues and little nooks and crannies. Art galleries, all sorts of shops and boutiques, little plazas with more shops and restaurants, and historical sights are there to see everywhere. They are both ancient cities, especially by our standards, and can trace their roots to the early Spanish explorers. The big difference though is St. Augustine was "discovered" by Henry Flagler, a partner with John D. Rockefeller in Standard oil, and Santa Fe had no such pedigree. It just grew from it's roots in the Southwest and the natural beauty people saw there in the land and the sky. Flagler saw his own beauty in St. Augustine, and on his honeymoon back in the late 1800's to his second wife, he decided that if you build it....they will come. And come they did, from all over the Northeast especially, the wealthy class flocked to St. Augustine after Flagler built lavish hotels to accommodate them. The most famous, and still very much standing, is now the Flagler College. You can walk in to what was the lobby and totally imagine what the scene there was like all those years ago. It's very impressive. We were given all sorts of S.A. eating tips from friends, but true to our M.O. we stumbled on a place that appealed to our senses, and our instincts didn't steer us wrong. Opus 39 has three different establishments. A very serious restaurant which has won lots of awards, a casual bakery/cafe which took up most of our attention, and a casual tapas place down the street from the first two. The sweet concoctions from pastry chef Kelly Mears had us from the first few minutes we walked in. I ordered a coconut white chocolate canoli. Mary Ann had a chocolate chip cookie. No ordinary cookie mind you. A great restaurant to us is one where you order something like chicken noodle soup at the Trading Post in Taos, NM (one of our all time top 3 places...anywhere!!) and it becomes the soup of any ilk that you measure ALL soups by. Likewise the chocolate chip cookie is now the new standard of ALL cookies. We went back again the next day for lunch and the Santa Fe connection chimed in again. We both thought the place reminded us a lot of Sage Bakehouse in Santa Fe, near The Plaza. Sage was started by ex Dallasite Andree Falls, who begat Parigi on Oak Lawn Ave. Amazing, not normal soups, sandwiches, and salads are on the little menu which looks like it changes at whim. The breads are artisan all the way, the ingredients are very fresh, and those sweets! We ended that visit with a little not normal (at all) apple tart which had a slight ginger flavor. The place is a total winner.
We drove all around Jacksonville on Saturday, after landing at the Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park which is right on the beach! Jacksonville looks a bit like the recession has hit hard. Downtown shows signs of life but it's not what we'd call vibrant. The old San Marco area is our favorite in town. Lots of older homes, some very well preserved from early in the last century. A nice little old shopping center too...with a still operating movie theater...one screen! Very cool and nostalgic indeed. We must have missed most of the areas with good eating places because almost all we've seen is one chain after the other.
On Sunday we drove from home base in the park up to Amelia Island, which sits almost on the Florida/Georgia border. Our first stop after taking the ferry boat to cross highway A1A was the Amelia Island Plantation, a planned community made up of a famous golf course surrounded by high end shops and restaurants and the resort. Simply beautiful. Adirondack chairs everywhere, just inviting you to sit awhile..and we did. We finally got up and drove further to what we thought was the town of Amelia Island,, but there is no such place. The town we were looking for is actually Fernandina. Never heard of it, but that is the old village near Amelia where everything's happening. We found a place called 29 South. It's a Slow Food restaurant. A what? You never heard of Slow Food? Slow Food is a movement to simply provide diners with the very freshest food possible. Without going into all the details (you can Google it later), most Slow Food restaurants will serve only items they can source locally, much of it organic if possible. The first one we ever encountered is in Brownwood, Tx of all places, called The Turtle. The food at 29 South was excellent. It was Sunday brunch and things like stuffed French Toast and shrimp and cheese grits with a giant biscuit were on the menu. Didn't taste or look like health food, but it was! The town is pretty large and a good walking venue too, with dozens of eateries and shops of all kinds. We did a few of the streets and the heat got the best of us so we headed back to the park to relax. On the way to the ferry, earlier in the day, we passed a little town called Mayport. It was founded in 1562, is a fishing village, home to the Coast Guard and Navy bases, and also a couple of awesome seafood places. The large one is actually just a retail outlet for the large fishing and shrimping fleet, and the other, called Singletons, is smaller and has it's own boats too. We ate dinner at Singletons, and it is not to be missed if you ever pass this way. The place is a total hole-in-the-wall. The food is some of the freshest we've ever tasted...right off the boat! Mary Ann had fresh boiled shrimp, and I tried a catch of the day, something called Sheepshead. It tasted like really good quality Cod. Prepared simply... grilled and served with some great sides like mustard greens, slaw, and amazing cornbread hush puppies. It turns out that both places are locally legendary, and people come from miles and even other states to eat there. After dinner we headed back to base camp and headed over to the beach to watch the sun go down. What a day! On to Georgia next....
We drove all around Jacksonville on Saturday, after landing at the Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park which is right on the beach! Jacksonville looks a bit like the recession has hit hard. Downtown shows signs of life but it's not what we'd call vibrant. The old San Marco area is our favorite in town. Lots of older homes, some very well preserved from early in the last century. A nice little old shopping center too...with a still operating movie theater...one screen! Very cool and nostalgic indeed. We must have missed most of the areas with good eating places because almost all we've seen is one chain after the other.
On Sunday we drove from home base in the park up to Amelia Island, which sits almost on the Florida/Georgia border. Our first stop after taking the ferry boat to cross highway A1A was the Amelia Island Plantation, a planned community made up of a famous golf course surrounded by high end shops and restaurants and the resort. Simply beautiful. Adirondack chairs everywhere, just inviting you to sit awhile..and we did. We finally got up and drove further to what we thought was the town of Amelia Island,, but there is no such place. The town we were looking for is actually Fernandina. Never heard of it, but that is the old village near Amelia where everything's happening. We found a place called 29 South. It's a Slow Food restaurant. A what? You never heard of Slow Food? Slow Food is a movement to simply provide diners with the very freshest food possible. Without going into all the details (you can Google it later), most Slow Food restaurants will serve only items they can source locally, much of it organic if possible. The first one we ever encountered is in Brownwood, Tx of all places, called The Turtle. The food at 29 South was excellent. It was Sunday brunch and things like stuffed French Toast and shrimp and cheese grits with a giant biscuit were on the menu. Didn't taste or look like health food, but it was! The town is pretty large and a good walking venue too, with dozens of eateries and shops of all kinds. We did a few of the streets and the heat got the best of us so we headed back to the park to relax. On the way to the ferry, earlier in the day, we passed a little town called Mayport. It was founded in 1562, is a fishing village, home to the Coast Guard and Navy bases, and also a couple of awesome seafood places. The large one is actually just a retail outlet for the large fishing and shrimping fleet, and the other, called Singletons, is smaller and has it's own boats too. We ate dinner at Singletons, and it is not to be missed if you ever pass this way. The place is a total hole-in-the-wall. The food is some of the freshest we've ever tasted...right off the boat! Mary Ann had fresh boiled shrimp, and I tried a catch of the day, something called Sheepshead. It tasted like really good quality Cod. Prepared simply... grilled and served with some great sides like mustard greens, slaw, and amazing cornbread hush puppies. It turns out that both places are locally legendary, and people come from miles and even other states to eat there. After dinner we headed back to base camp and headed over to the beach to watch the sun go down. What a day! On to Georgia next....
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