Summer is coming to an end, and we are soaking up every bit of sun that we can before it does! We took a road trip this past weekend to the oldest city in America—St. Augustine. It was a quick one-nighter trip to the coast so we drove in early after Brett’s soccer coach meeting on Saturday and checked in at the Casa Monica Resort & Spa.
What to do on a Family Weekend in St. Augustine
The hotel was in the perfect location to experience everything we wanted to do and within walking distance, which is my favorite for exploring. The Old Town Trolly Tour is really popular to get around there, but because we knew we what we wanted to see, everything was so close and we decided against it to save some money. (It was pricier than I thought it would be!)
Once we arrived, we were ready to get going and walked the short way along the water to the Castillo de San Marcos.
We explored for a while (in the heat!) until the cannon firing demonstration which was very cool.
There was a nice sea breeze though so that was a plus.
Afterwards, we were ready to cool down and find a lunch spot. We were meeting with my good friend Loreyn and her family who live close by.
The best option was to walk over to the famous St. George Street where there are so many options. We put our names in at Prohibition Kitchen while we walked around a bit more. There was an indoor mall with the iciest air flow and we decided to pop in there, grab a drink at Barefoot Bill’s and wait for our buzzer to go off.
PK was a great spot, with a really cool vibe and great food. The kids had fun with the best kids menu activities I’ve ever seen. Since we wanted to have an early dinner all together before our friends went home, we enjoyed some light bites so we wouldn’t be too full.
Some of our other contenders for lunch that were all in walking distance of the fort were:
It’s so hard to go somewhere for only a day, because we don’t get to eat that much! Ha!
After lunch, we went to the Pirate & Treasure Museum, which has been on my bucket list for this year! I’ve always thought that pirate stories were the best and intrigued by all the documentaries and movies about them, so this was just as exciting for me as it was for the kids.
There were some very cool experiences throughout and so many rare artifacts. The kids had fun finding little secret drawers to open up on their scavenger hunt and we let them pick out a “treasure” from the gift shop before heading back out on St. George Street.
Afterwards, the guys found a great spot, with fans, shade and live music, while Loreyn and I found the kids some sweets. It was called Pierre’s Pub I believe.
There are so many ice cream shops along the main street. But we stopped by these two locations to get our sweet on:
Earlier in the day when we were looking for a spot for lunch, we put our name in at River and Fort, a new steak and seafood restaurant right outside the Castillo on the water. It worked out perfectly for us to get back for dinner since they only take walk-ins and the wait was super long.
It was really pretty place and the food was great as well.
After dinner, we went back to the hotel to get the keys to our room and let the kids play for a bit. It was so much fun seeing them! Once they left, I still wanted to explore the city a bit after dark. There was some great live music at Colonial Oak Music Park. And when the kids were no longer capable of standing, we went back to the hotel to settle in for the night.
Sunday
On Sunday morning, we made our way over to Blue Hen Café, a place on my list to try. It was a 12 minute walk from the hotel, in the opposite direction of where we were, so it was fun to do more exploring.
There was of course an hour long wait when we got there, but we put our names in anyways, and head back to the hotel area to grab a coffee at Starbucks.
It ended up working out great, because we walked to the Flagler College and it was very cool, even this kids thought so.
There is still so much we want to see, but this was a short trip. We would love to take a tour of the school next time. It was definitely hot enough for the pool or beach, which we didn’t make it to either.
Ancient City Brewery, the Distillery and Ice Plant Bar were missed because we had to drive home after breakfast, but we will need to make the trip back and spend another family weekend St. Augustine. It’s a really fun place for great food and history for the adults and the kids.
Wow! Great trip!