The old Spanish town of St. Augustine was truly a revelation. It was my brother Roger who, having visited the city earlier, suggested that we include it on our itinerary, and I was grateful for his advice after we had surveyed the attractions it offered. Established as the oldest town in America by the Spaniard explorers in 1565, Pedro Menendez de Aviles is credited for putting the town on the map, having named it for the saint upon whose feast day his ship landed ashore. Over the centuries, it has attracted a vast number of settlers eager to find their fortunes in the New World. For the contemporary traveler, the city offers a wealth of reminders of what colonial American looked like under Spanish influence.

We began our exploration the way we usually do—at the Visitors Center. From there, armed with maps and recommendations for restaurants, we walked to the historic district, passing through the old City Gates (left) wrought in giant stone masonry and sporting huge cannonballs on their pedestals. Right past the gates, the town opens up to the famous St. George Street where the bulk of the action is located. Lined with souvenir shops, restaurants, ice-cream parlors and amusement arcades, the street retains its delightful Spanish ambience in the distinctive architecture that characterizes all small Mediterranean towns.

Having seen this architecture in some old pockets of Bombay quite frequently through the Portuguese settlers, I was charmed to note how similar in style and conception these communities were. St. George Street (right)  is also the location of the oldest wooden school house in the country where tours of the interior are offered. Deciding to eat brunch, we made our way to Aviles Street, past the Plaza de la Constitution, a green oasis that forms the Basilica-Cathedral Square. At Las Haciencas Restaurant, we ate gigantic Spanish omelettes, then resumed our walking tour of the town.

St. Augustine is extremely walker-friendly and there is nothing that cannot be reached on foot. After a visit to the spectacular interior of the Cathedral with its magnificent marble altar, we left the ancient Spanish Quarter behind us, and walked down King Street where the ambience changed dramatically.

This was more modern, sophisticated St. Augustine—the St. Augustine of Henry Flagler who has a college named after him. Indeed, the old Ponce de Leon Hotel that he designed and created with an eye to attracting wealthy Americans to the sunny South, has been turned today into a superb institution of higher learning. The splendor of the building called Flagler College has to be seen to be believed. Not only is the exterior stunning, but the main lobby (today the Visitors Lobby) is a study in gilded Renaissance Baroque excess. We walked around the grand building, then crossed King Street to get to the Lightner Museum, also one of Flagler’s former hotels, then called the Alcazar.

Today, the Lightner houses the individual collection of Chicago publisher Otto C. Lightner who spent his lifetime amassing decorative Victorian artifacts from clocks and marble fountains to carved wooden tables and Tiffany stained glass windows. The gardens that surround the building are equally compelling for the avid visitor and the koi that swam under the Japanese bridges were fascinating. The outsides of Flagler’s former hotels, all in the Hispano-Moorish style, are truly breathtaking. This drama is seen also in the Cordoba Hotel, Flagler’s third, which stands adjacent to the Lightner—together they make a stylish architectural statement and give St. Augustine an august grandeur.
Castillo de San Marco:

Our next stop was at the Castillo de San Marco which lies across the broad Avenida Menendez. The bridge across the river is flanked by twin lions but the fortress sits on the seafront, occupying a position of strategic beauty. The Spanish colonizers began work on this stone fortification in 1672. Successive settlers in the region added to its dimensions so that it is a hulking structure today but deeply aesthetic in the star shape that its bastions have taken. Built uniquely of coquina, a combination of powdered compressed seashell and coral with mortar, the structure’s walls remain delicate and subject to easy destruction. After the US gained control of Florida from the Spaniards in 1821, the fortress was renamed Fort Marion and used during the Civil War as a military prison, hospital and storage depot. Today maintained by the US Park Service, self-guided tours costing $6 each take visitors through the antiquated environs, allowing visits to the old infirmary, the soldiers’ barracks, the chapel, etc. Though much of the fortress has fallen into disuse, effective reconstruction is slowly bringing it back to its former glory. We were fortunate enough to see a re-enactment of a canon-firing ceremony on the gun deck undertaken as if at Fort Marion in the days of the Civil War. Confederate soldiers dressed in the blue coats of that period performed the ceremony on the ramparts of the fort under perfectly blue skies that were mirrored in the perfectly blue waters of the ocean. It was easy to imagine how effectively those canons might have delivered their deadly ammunition to their unfortunate targets. Later in our rambles around the moat, the watch towers and the guard rooms, we had a chance to escape into a former century and imagine what life might have looked like when lived in an age of siege.

(Llew stands outside the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the USA and Rochelle stands outsdie the oldest house in the USA)

St. Augustine truly offers a glimpse of the kind of Florida one does not see anywhere else in the state. It is a tribute to the pioneering zeal, if destructive spirit, of the greedy Spanish colonists who arrived in the New World for god, gold and glory but left behind a living legacy of their national culture. Glad to have experienced this spirit for ourselves, we spent a night further south in Titusville before heading off the next day to Palm Beach.

Bon Voyage!

Florida’s Perfect Palm Beach and Bewitching Boca

Palm Beach is every bit as chi-chi as you might have heard. Though I have traveled to the ritziest parts of California (Belle Air, Hollywood and Rodeo Drive, for instance), I have never seen so privileged a lifestyle as I saw on the streets of this impeccable city. This is the place to people-watch if catching glimpses of the beau monde is your cup of tea. Henry Flagler is once again to be credited for visualizing and creating this playground for the rich and famous at the end of the 19th century. In the early twentieth century, he was joined in his efforts by architect Addison Mizner who designed and built a number of grand Spanish style mansions for the well-heeled who made this city their winter playground.

There is literally not a street out of place is this superbly planned city. From the minute you drive into its palatial environs, past the tall coconut palms that line the wide boulevards, you sense in your bones that you are in the company of American aristocracy. The town is dominated by the red-roofed turrets of the old Royal Porciana Hotel, today an apartment building. Even the high school building by which we passed, has all the aura of a Spanish hacienda. We were struck by the amount of time, money and energy that has gone into keeping this city uniform in its architectural appeal and in the addition of the distinctive embellishments that make good architecture great.
Using my trusty DK Eye-Witness Guide Book, we parked our car and took a walking tour of the city, starting at Sunrise Avenue where we stepped briefly into St. Edward Church to see some of the most amazing stained glass windows in the south. Right opposite the church is Greene’s Pharmacy and Luncheonette which has been steadily in business since the 1930s and offers all the old-fashioned ambience of a casual city diner and soda fountain.
Back in our car, we drove to one of the most famous hotels of the south, The Breakers, where, at The Seafood Bar, in an attempt to cast a glance at the posh interiors of the lobby, we decided to have a light lunch of the famous Florida Hearts of Palm Salad. Also conceived and designed by Flagler, The Breakers is an opulent piece of work indeed, as astonishing on the inside as it is impressive on the outside. The lobby is so magnificent that we felt as if we were in a museum. Occupying an enviable piece of real estate, right on the waterfront whose waves give the hotel its name, we were so taken by the building lapped by the jade waters of the Atlantic that lay just a stone’s throw away from us as we lunched in right royal style.

 Continuing our exploration of Palm Beach, we drove towards Worth Street, one of the prettiest shopping areas I have ever seen. Lined by low slung buildings in the most appealing pastel shades, the shop fronts had charming displays of some of the world’s most expensive luxury goods from watches and designer clothing to alligator skin handbags and stone-studded jewelry. A fine showcase of American wealth, Worth Street made pleasant window shopping even if one didn’t wish to part with a penny.

Back in our car, we continued our driving tour of the city arriving at Casa de Leoni (left), the home that Mizner built as his private residence on the banks of Lake Worth. Everywhere we went we saw a similar style in homes that were well concealed behind tall and superbly manicured hedges—Spanish red tiled roofs overhung pink abode and stuccoed walls adorned with delicate wrought iron trellises at windows and Juliet-style balconies. Overall, these architectural confections whispered Old Money. So rich are the townspeople that even the Town Hall is a work of art and when viewed from the street corner it is easy to mistake the buildings that make up the Town Hall Corner for a really prosperous part of modern Spain. We were sorry that Whitehall, the private winter residence of Henry Flagler, today the Flagler Museum, is closed on Mondays, making it impossible for us to see the undoubtedly breathtaking interiors.

Beguiling Boca Raton:

(Llew–left–and Rochelle–right–at Mizner Park in Boca Raton)

We stopped for ice-cream at Greene’s Luncheonette where the portions were huge and the service was old-fashioned, before we hit the highway again and headed towards Boca Raton to get an idea of the city that is generally referred to as “Boca”. Also visualized by Mizner as being a secondary Palm Beach, the extravagance that comprises the city did not materialize in his own lifetime but developed only after his demise into the commercial dream that it is today. In this city too, it is well-manicured golf courses and country clubs, high end stores and shopping plazas that make the tourist gasp in wonder. We decided to drive directly to Mizner Park, named after this brilliant visionary, a space where a Cultural Center, a Museum of Fine Art and a collection of upscale stores sit cheek by jowl in a superbly-planned space that sparkles with Spanish style fountains and cobbled sidewalks. Today’s city planners have continued Mizner’s dream, building plazas that echo his great love for Spanish detail as seen in the ice-cream hued walls and red tiled roofs that adorn them.

Without straying from our itinerary too long, we got back into our car and continued driving further south along the east coast, taking the more scenic Route 1 which skirts the coast offering lovely glimpses of the clear blue waters of the Atlantic and the many coastal homes that dot the region. We made our home for the next three nights at Dania Beach just south of Fort Lauderdale where our friends Allan and Martha Rodriguez live. We called it a night rather early as the next morning would see us wake up at the crack of dawn to board our cruise ship for our first glimpse of the Caribbean Islands of the Bahamas.

Bon Voyage!

Naples: Florida’s Italianate City

Our visit to Naples on the West Coast of Florida was completely unplanned. Discovering upon leaving that we would, upon our return drive home, be arriving in Charleston, South Carolina, by the late afternoon, we made an impulsive decision to drive across the state on what is called Alligator Alley to get to Naples. I had heard a great deal about this immaculate town and resolved to get a quick glimpse into the West Coast lifestyle. The drive, far from being boring, was thick with bird life. Though we did not see any alligators on the alley, we did see a variety of stocks and herons for the road passes through several wetlands and conservation areas.
When we arrived in Naples, we drove directly to the residential area known as Pelican Bay to meet up with our friends Doris and Hank Herbring, formerly of Southport, who have retired to Florida for the majority of the year. Their home on Via Mezner was simply charming. Driving along the broad tree-lined boulevards was a revelation of the kind of posh lifestyle that is possible when one has saved carefully over a lifetime to live a retired life of quiet luxury. We passed mile after mile of emerald-green golf courses and fancy country clubs, big name retail stores and every conceivable restaurant chain. When we did get to the Herbrings, we were bewitched by the style and ambience of their lovely home. A pergola covered with magenta bouganvillea led us into their covered sunny porch and into a living room that was flooded with sunlight from the picture windows. After we had spent a while catching up with our friends who looked remarkably fit and tanned and bursting with vitality, they took us for a walk around their pool and club house to give us an insight into the kind of life they lead. Next, they drove us to the “terminus” for a “tram”—really little more than a roomy golf cart—which then took us down to Pelican Bay past the most colorful bird life. Imagine our delight when we passed by a sand bank and saw a dozen lively baby alligators, no bigger than large lizards, being hounded by hungry stocks and egrets. As the alligators slithered towards the safety of the water, the egrets pounced down upon them leaving them little chance of survival. Thrilled that we had spotted alligators in Florida, albeit a nest of baby ones, we felt as if we were on an exotic vacation to a South Pacific Island or at a Disney theme park passing under tropical waterfalls whose caverns were stocked with plumed wonders. In a few moments, we arrived at the beautiful spotless white beach. The tide was in and waves came right up to the sunbathers’ toes as they tanned steadily beneath their blue beach umbrellas.

Then, bidding goodbye to the Herbrings, we drove to Downtown Naples to take in the enticements of Fifth Avenue. The buildings sport the same pastel colors which I had, by this point, begun to recognize as typically Floridian. Lovely shops, real estate agencies, casual restaurants and boutiques were scattered amidst fountains, cobbled squares and low slung bridges as we made our way down the road. Since it was such a lovely afternoon, it was not surprising that retirees and preppy youngsters chose to sit at pavement cafes sipping their java at leisure as shiny luxury cars made their way down the main street. While Miami, Palm Beach and Boca exude a distinctly Spanish flavor, the essence of life here in Naples, like the city from where it derives its name, is decidedly Italian. Streets are named with Via (meaning “road” in Italian) in their prefixes and pillars and classical Roman statuary are used decoratively everywhere the eye turns

In every way, Naples reeked conservative wealth and prosperity and we were very pleased to have seen how the other half lives in America. Most of Florida seems to be populated with older people who, in the winter, live the good life, their daily routine interspersed with tennis and golf, manicures and perms at the local salons, daytime shopping expeditions and night-time meals eaten al fresco while sipping chilled wines. It is a lifestyle that is deeply enviable and thoroughly Floridian. Come June, most of these Snowbirds will have migrated to cooler climes northwards, leaving their gorgeous homes vacant until the arrival of the next  winter. We were glad we had a small taste of Naples. We understood why real estate in this part of the country is so pricey and sought-after.

Bon Voyage!

Carefree in Key West

The next day, we were up and doing rather early to start our long drive to Southern Florida and into the Florida Keys. The “Keys” is the collective name given to the string of islands that juts out into the Gulf of Mexico from the southernmost tip of Florida. Once coral reefs that came up to the surface through volcanic activity, they now peek out above the waters forming a chain. The drive from the first Key (Key Largo) to the last one (Key West) takes about two hours, so one ought to reserve a great deal of time to truly explore the Keys.
You cannot fail but be enchanted by this part of the state. The water is crystalline and an incredibly aquamarine blue as far as the eye can see. Gentle waves lap the shores of each island. If you have a clear day under cloudless skies, you will feel as if you are driving out deep into the ocean. The drive itself is so marvelous that I understood the truth of the old adage—“It is not just the destination but the journey that makes travel so fulfilling”. That was how psychologically satisfied I felt that morning. I could have driven like that forever and never have become fatigued.

It is difficult to tell when one Key ends and the next begins. Some are so miniscule that they do not even feature on a map. Others are far more substantial and deserve visits all their own—Islamorada (pronounced “Eye-la-mo-ra-da”) is a great base for scuba diving in the Florida Coral Reef and is the “fishing capital of the world”. Marathon is equally important. We refrained from stopping anywhere, however, enjoying the passing landscape as it flew by our windows. The streets were dotted with shops and restaurants doing rather sleepy business on that beautiful March morning. Once in the Middle Keys, we drove over Seven Mile Bridge and saw the older railway bridge of Henry Flagler (now lying in disuse) on our left. Anglers dotted the pedestrian walks along the bridges, sharing space companionably and unbelievably with an amazing variety of bird life such a giant pelicans, colorful storks, black cormorants, snow white egrets and gulls in every size, shape and form. Bird droppings encrusted the bridges and telephone lines throughout our journey, the antics of their creators making any distraction impossible.

It was past noon by the time we arrived at Key West and found ourselves starving for a meal. It seemed only logical that we would go out in search of Margaritaville Café (right) , only the most famous restaurant on the island, having been opened by Key West pop icon Jimmy Buffet who put the little hamlet on the international music map. “Wasting away again in Margaritaville/Searching for my last shaker of salt/ Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame/But I  know, its nobody’s fault”.

The cafe seems deceptively little from the outside. Inside, it is cavernous and suitably dim. Packed to capacity on that Spring Break weekend with collegians out bogeying, we waited a while before ordering a salted frozen margarita (duh?) and the culinary specialties of the island—conch fritters and conch chowder. Both were delicious indeed and made a very tasty meal as Jimmy Buffet hits played in the background.
Outside, we passed by Sloppy Joe’s Bar, favorite hangout of novelist Ernest Hemingway who made Key West his home for many years. It too was buzzing with party animals inside. The stores selling T-shirts with the funniest visuals and sayings on them, Caribbean-styled churches that glistened white in the strong sun, gingerbread houses in the distinctive plantation style of the South with wide upper and lower level porches and gardens filled with tropical foliage and flowers drew our attention everywhere. Nibblin’ on sponge cake,/Watchin’ the sun bake;/All of those tourists covered with oil./Strummin’ my six string on my front porch swing./Smell those shrimp/They’re beginnin’ to boil. The lyrics of Buffet’s song echoed repeatedly in my mind as I passed those spacious porches and those swiftly-tanning tourists. Key West is an attitude, sang Buffet, and he was not mistaken. You get the feeling that you have left the United States behind and entered the laid-back world of the Caribbean Islands in these parts.

(Outside Hemingway’s house–left–and a view of his Bedroom with one of his six-toed paws lounging on it)

(Hemingway’s Study and The Notorious Cat Fountain in his garden)

With the sun growing warm on our backs, we hastened off to Whitehead Street to see Hemingway House, a lovely green and lemon double storied plantation style center hall colonial home set in the lushest gardens. Hemingway lived in this home for nine of the most productive years of his life while married to his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer and raising his two sons, Christopher and Patrick. There, ensconced in a world of tropical greenery and cats, scores of them– more than fifty of them–he wrote about 700 words by mid-morning, then left for a bout of deep-sea fishing with his friend Gregorio Fuentes who became the character Santiago in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Old Man and The Sea. Back in the late evening, he returned from the waves and walked to Sloppy Joe’s for his daily tipple—not a bad life by any stretch of the imagination!  This routine seemed to work rather successfully, until he went off on his next voyage to somewhere exotic, caught the eye of another enticing lady and entered, like Picasso, into another passionate and artistically productive relationship and phase of his life.

A very enthusiastic guide, a Hemingway look-a-like–complete with goatee beard and mariner’s hat–took us around the home, introducing us to the personal minutea of Hemingway’s life. We saw the master bedroom on which one of the cats, a ginger tabby called Archie (short for Archibald McLeish) sprawled contentedly. The bed’s headboard was custom-made of beautifully carved ebony brought back from the novelist’s travels in Africa. We were able to visit his study, cut off by the rest of the house in another building but connected to it in his own lifetime, by a catwalk. His desk, cigar-maker’s chair and bookcases proclaimed a fairly Spartan lifestyle. The typewriter was somewhat misleading as Hemingway was notorious for having penned all his novels in long hand. Still, peering into his study gave us an evocative glimpse into a life lived with zest and a passionate vigor. “Papa” Hemingway has not become an iconic figure in American literature for nothing. His hard swearing, hard drinking, hard womanizing ways, his big game hunting in Africa, his deep sea fishing in Cuba, his bar hopping in Paris, his war wounds received while a foreign correspondent in Italy during World War II and the Spanish Civil War, have all contributed enormously to his aura and all of this was evident on our tour. Indeed, the place seems to emanate a spirit of adventure that was purely thrilling and I loved every inch of it. At the beautiful Olympic sized pool, created for him by Pauline as a surprise, we saw the penny, now encased in concrete that he tossed at her when he discovered that building the pool had cost $20,000 saying, in disgust, “Well, he (the builder) might as well take the last penny I’ve got!” We saw also the famous Cat Fountain salvaged by “Sloppy” Joe Russel from what were once urinals in an old Key West theater. Hemingway requested that he be given one of them, then turned it into a drinking trough for his cats, much to Pauline’s disgust. Discovering that he could not be persuaded to get rid of it, she had it embellished with Spanish ceramic tiles. Funnily enough, not a single one of the cats ever drinks from it!

We could not leave Key West without taking the mandatory pictures at the garishly-painted concrete pillar that marks “The Southernmost Point of the Continental United States”. Lapped by ferocious waves, the area is usually mobbed by visitors, eager to get their pictures taken at the unusual landmark. We also took our pictures by the road signpost marking Zero Mile on Route 1 which runs south to north all along the US East Coast right past our home in Connecticut. Then, making our way back to the car park at Mallory Square where gigantic papier mache figures replicating a scene from one of August Renoir’s most famous paintings, stood outside the Museum of Fine Art by the water’s edge where grand cruise ships dock daily.

On our way back, we hopped off at Key Largo to have dinner at The Fish House Restaurant that’s serves the best seafood in the Keys. Between the stuffed shrimp and the stuffed mushrooms, we had a hearty meal, downed with occasional sips of a Rum Runner, a famous Southern Floridian cocktail that is well known in these parts. Needless to say, we couldn’t leave the Keys without partaking of its most famous dessert—Key Lime Pie it was for us, tangy-sweet and amazingly delicious.

Bon Voyage!