We found the Old Town Trolley Tours in Savannah and Boston gave us a great overview of all the major sites and attractions and decided to use them again for our St. Augustine orientation. And again, they did the job superbly!

What we did:

She said:

Here comes our trolley.  As we toured the city, the driver gave us insight into the various attractions as well as some history of the city.

We loved our trolley ride.  The drivers really deserve their tips as they manage to blend just the right amount of humor with the information, making for a pleasant time – in spite of the rain we encountered!

This town has so much great architecture, I must have taken a hundred pictures.  Unfortunately, because it was hard to be steady, most were left on the cutting room floor!  So, you’ll have to take my word for it, along with these few examples, of what a marvelous place this is!   

This interesting building - The Villa Zorayda Museum- began the Moorish Spanish revival of architecture that is seen throughout the city today, changing the look of St. Augustine forever.  It was built in 1883 as the winter home of Franklin W. Smith, an eccentric Boston millionaire who made his fortune selling hardware, and pioneered the use of poured concrete and crushed coquina shell construction. It is a 1/10 sized replica a section of the  Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain. The attraction, in addition to the building itself, are the priceless antiques from its previous owners, Franklin Smith and A.S. Mussallem, an authority on Egyptian artifacts.  The diverse back grounds of these two owners spawn the eclectic nature of the museum.

See various shapes and sizes of the windows – interesting, don’t you think??? I suppose they are that way to replicate the building in Spain, but why were they like that in the first place?

This is the Lightner Museum, which exhibits relics of America’s Gilded Age. It was built by Henry M. Flagler in 1887 as the Alcazar Hotel, accomodating wealthy patrons until the 1940′s.  It was purchased by Otto C. Lightner in 1946 and converted into a museum for his extensive collection of Victoriana. I wish I could have stayed there when it was a hotel!

One of my favorite episodes of the Ghost Hunters (SyFy) was their visit to the St. Augustine Lighthouse.  I just had to see it.  Especially because they did encounter “ghosts” peering down on them from the top staircase in the light house.  I just love Jason and Grant!

This is the view from the  top of the light house.  It is pretty spectacular!

He said:

How many steps you ask? 219!! Was it worth it? Well, we didn’t find any ghosts, but, the view was dramatic and, most importantly, Marla was happy! The trolley ride did introduce a number of great places to explore and I had a tough time selecting what I felt were the top places to visit. Of course, the lighthouse is my favorite!

Boston Harbor; image from flickr by Willem von Bergen

Downtown Boston; image from flickr by tostie14

Boston has so much to offer – history, sports, museums, shopping and, unfortunately, some of the worst traffic I’ve ever seen – a 4 or 5 hour stop from a cruise ship requires choosing one thing to do and being satisfied with it.      

 What we did:     

She said:     

We landed in Boston, and upon debarkation, took the shuttle into the city.  We spent some time and had a quick lunch at the Faneuil Hall Marketplace.  Faneuil Marketplace is a huge conglomeration of shops and restaurants all in one place.  It has everything, but we weren’t really in a shopping mood, and Bill had never been to Boston and wanted to see the city.  I’ve been to Boston many times, but had never taken a tour to see everything.  The biggest bang for the buck and time were the trolley rides.  It took forever for the trolley to arrive and the lines were long, but we finally hopped on one and away we went.  It happened to be the same trolley company that we were on in Savannah.  The tour guide was really pretty good and if we had had more time we could have hopped on and off to see more.  Boston is a fun city to see, and a terrible city to have to drive, so the trolley is the best, and I strongly recommend it.     

He said:     

In that I’d never been here, we opted for a visit to the Faneuil Marketplace and a trolley trip around the city. The shopping wasn’t high on our priority list, so the huge marketplace was more of a time filler than anything else. We did, however, manage to find some wonderful clam chowder to sate our nourishment needs!     

The Old Town Trolley tour we took covered a little bit of everything. Had we been in town longer, with the on and off feature, we could have used it to see the historical areas associated with the revolution. It was frustrating to get so close to spots like BeaconHill, Cambridge, the Bunker Hill Monument, and the Old North Church yet not have the time to further explore and imagine the exciting history that occurred at these spots. The nearly 2 hour drive through town did, however, served to peek my interest for a future visit when we can spend a few days here.