Dog-friendly St. Augustine
Continued from An impromptu vacation to St. Augustine.
Thanks to a very long, grueling trolley tour, we had run out of time to do most of the things we wanted on our 2nd day of exploring St. Augustine. We ended up abandoning our tour, getting our truck, and driving closer to Castillo de San Marcos, the city's historic fort. Only, if you read our last blog post, historical information was not the fort's forte. We decided then to stop scrambling to fit more excursions in, and to slow our pace and find things that actually aligned with how we wanted to experience St. Augustine. I said before that this city was on my travel list for good reason: history, architecture, and natural beauty. We soon discovered that food was another good reason to visit here. So with those in mind, we steered our impromptu vacation in a new direction.
Since we hadn't put a bad bite of food in our mouths since arriving to St. Augustine, we knew dessert would be a safe bet for an activity that could salvage our day. We got soft serve at Cookiebird. When Googling for our shortlist of restaurants, this place intrigued us for its Instagrammable essence alone, but we loved the build-your-own soft serve concept. We chose our ice cream, then our cone/dish (which includes a selection of plain and flavored cones), and then our toppings. I got vanilla-chocolate swirl in a dark chocolate cone, topped with caramel sauce and praline pecans. Anthony got the same everything, except he opted for chocolate sprinkles instead of the pecans. This place gets a solid review from us. Was it the best soft serve we've ever had? No. But it was tasty, the place was adorable, the worker Kate was super nice, and yes, the cones are very photogenic.
As we ate our cones, we walked over to Our Lady de la Leche Shrine, home of The Great Cross. Legend has it that when Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the town in 1565, the settlers held the first mass that day. They celebrated by holding a small wooden cross up. That day is now commemorated by a much larger steel cross, built on the approximate site where Menéndez de Avilés landed. There is an acre of gardens and pathways near the cross, behind the church. It was quaint and peaceful. We got to read about the garden's description as "America's most sacred acre" and walk the many historic and sacred spaces of the grounds. We saw the chapel built in the 1900s and the rustic alter re-creation, plus the few burial grounds on the premises.
This was a surprising and welcome end to our day, especially after being Pepper-blasted on our trolley for 2 hours. A peaceful walk through gardens, appreciating the real history of St. Augustine, complete with ice cream – now that's how we do St. Augustine right. We hoped we could take that energy into our final day exploring the city.
Day 3: Dog-friendly fun
Something we noticed early on was how incredibly dog-friendly St. Augustine is. Almost every restaurant has outdoor seating, open to both humans and pets. Some establishments, like Bad Ass Coffee, let dogs inside as well. Many of the beaches, including Butler Beach, is dog-friendly year-round, an anomaly in most coastal regions. Even our research for tourist activities yielded several that dogs could participate in.
To see a comprehensive list of dog-friendly establishments in St. Augustine (or anywhere else, for that matter!), we recommend using Bring Fido.
Tanner's physical and mental abilities are a bit touch-and-go these days, so we played it tentatively and waited to see how he felt a couple days after our big drive day. Then on our final day in St. Augustine, we created a Tanner-friendly itinerary.
We started off with a trip back to Anastasia Island so we could visit the Lighthouse and Maritime Museum. We hoped to do this the day before, but the trolley tour hijacked our itinerary a bit. Dogs are allowed on the grounds of the museum, which is comprised of a bunch of historic buildings and the lighthouse itself. However, dogs are not allowed in any of the buildings except for the gift shop. Admission was $17.95 per person, but at the time of writing this, there is a discount online for getting tickets in advance. We hoped that we'd be able to just walk the grounds without needing to pay full price, but all of the buildings were open and unmonitored, so the whole museum was full access whether we planned to go inside buildings or not. This was the one activity we did where we could have gotten more bang for our buck if Tanner wasn't along. The museum has 9 buildings, plus some exhibits and demos throughout the day. There is also a snack bar that serves hot dogs, ice cream, fudge, and beverages including beer and house-made sangria. There wasn't too much to explore on the grounds itself, but we were able to roam the historic sites and pop into the Heritage Boat Works tent where one of the workers was building a boat. There are also some short nature trails.
The only building we went into was the lighthouse. Visitors are allowed to climb the 219 steps, and we couldn't pass up the views. So we took turns climbing up while the other stayed back with Tanner. See if you can spot Tanner in the photo, taken from 165ft above!
The lighthouse's construction was completed in 1874, set back 300ft from the original lighthouse, which became a victim of erosion just 6 years after this new one was built. This lighthouse is still in active operation. The building across from it is the Keeper's house, restored after a fire in the 1970s. Most Lightkeeper dwellings are tiny, but this one was larger to accommodate multiple families at once. At any given time, there were as many as 3 Lightkeepers – the main Keeper and two assistants.
By the end of our visit, Tanny was acting like he needed a break, so we decided to grab some lunch. Since we were back on Anastasia Island and didn't want to deal with downtown parking, we decided to head up the street to Beachside Diner, a classic American diner with a big patio for dining al fresco, Tanner's favorite! Just look at him. As soon as we sat down, he knew what was coming.
We had great meals during our time in St. Augustine, and even Beachside Diner was great for what it was. We weren't expecting anything incredible, but most of what we had was above average, as far as diner food is concerned. I got the spicy chicken and waffles, which they drizzle with spicy honey. The chicken was definitely the star of the meal. I expected typical chicken tenders that we could get anywhere, but this was a much higher standard. The pieces were huge and perfectly fried. The flavor was perfect, too, with just a hint of spice. Anthony got the Old Timer, a combination plate with a couple options for sides. Anthony got a biscuit with gravy, bacon, scrambled eggs, and hashbrowns.
The restaurant didn't have a dedicated pup menu, but they had water bowls and treats. Tanner partook in the treats but otherwise was just happy to have a good view for people watching.
We weren't sure if after this, we'd just call it a day, but Tanner seemed rejuvenated after his lunch break. We really wanted to go to the Fountain of Youth Settlement, the city's living history museum. We felt like our trolley tour really skimped on the early history of St. Augustine, which we knew we'd get at the settlement. And it's dog-friendly to boot! Dogs have access to the whole place, buildings included. This was great because, if it got too hot in the sun, we could just bring Tanner into one of the buildings. This is also where both humans and pooches can drink from the Fountain of Youth spring water, and hey...anything to keep Tanner youthful. We decided to give it a go.
This museum travels even further back in time than St. Augustine's first established settlement by Pedro Menendez de Aviles in 1565. Ponce de Leon discovered this land in 1513, and before that, a confederation of Native tribes now known as the Timucua occupied the region. The settlement dedicates exhibits to these time periods. Although Ponce de Leon's association with a fountain of youth is mythical legend, the museum offers visitors drinks of mineral water from a natural spring. The spring is located just past the ticket booth, so we stopped there first. We heard that the flavor wasn't the best, but as we know, staying youthful is sometimes unpleasant! It wasn't actually that bad, though. We've certainly had worse. Tanner refused to drink it, but he did partake in lapping up "Fountain of Pooch" water from two separate bowls. We don't know if that water will have the same "anti-aging" properties, but considering Tanner is still enjoying his senior years as much as he is, we'd say he's doing pretty good regardless.
As soon as we found out that Tanner could go inside the planetarium, we were determined to make one of the showtimes. It's an old planetarium with a pretty grainy display, but we watched the 12-minute feature on the "discovery" of Florida. Anthony said a lot of the information wasn't accurate or was more elementary school level, but I wasn't listening to it one bit. I was too busy watching Tanner like the proud mom I am. As soon as the ceiling lit up, Tanner was totally enthralled. I expected him to just pace around and look at me like "What the fwick?!" but he actually looked like he was watching the show! Just proves you're never too old to try new things.
After the planetarium, we walked through the settlement and over to the riverwalk, a boardwalk with beautiful water views and good birdwatching. Along the way, we saw the Native American exhibit, the area of the original Spanish settlement, an interactive knot-tying exhibit, the blacksmith demonstration, the workboat exhibit, the cannons, and the watchtower.
After our walk, we were all starting to feel the effects of the sun, so we headed back to the parking lot. Along the way, we saw the Ponce de Leon statue. Then on our way out, Anthony and I couldn't help but get ourselves some Dole Whip to cool ourselves down. The settlement has a full-on barbecue restaurant in addition to an ice cream window.
If you want to take your pup to a quintessential tourist activity in St. Augustine, this is our recommendation. It was really fun getting to take Tanner all the places we were allowed. Just be aware, the settlement has tons of peacocks that free roam the property, so if your dog is a bird chaser or afraid of big birds, this might not be the best choice. We were also warned about the hourly firearms and cannon firings. For us, none of these were deterrents. Tanner can't see or hear much these days. We call this his "ignorance is bliss phase" where all the anxiety is gone and he's just happy to be rolling along.
We've been to other cities that claim they're dog-friendly, only to find the place overrun with restrictions. This was not the case with St. Augustine. We were thoroughly impressed with how many dog-friendly options we had for food and activities. We even saw some tours that dogs could go on! This city is definitely fun for the whole family, dog-children included.
And with that, we concluded our impromptu vacation in St. Augustine, a worthwhile stop to enjoy some adventures after our tire troubles. We hoped we had turned a corner and could have more enjoyment like this moving forward...but was it in the cards? A new turn is up ahead.