A tour of Castillo De San Marcos

Last week I decided to finally take a tour of Castillo De San Marcos. This fort was built in 1672. That just is hard to believe. Read some of the history from that link and from the nps.gov site. I enjoyed my tour, and I say tour, but actually I just walked about the fort by myself. They do have tours if you choose to do so.

Castillo De San Marcos

This inlet is what the fort was built to protect

A model of the fort

A view of a watchtower from outside

A view of a watchtower from inside (see the construction in the background? That is the Bridge of Lions.)


Another outside view

The outside walls

Speaking of walls, this is a close up of what the walls were made of...seashells.

Drawbridge door

This was a what was written on a sign under the next photo: "Historians have puzzled over the fragments of words in this graffiti for decades. The shaping of the letters tells us it is 18th century Spanish, but the pieces of words we can still see make no sense. Can you figure it out?"

Graffiti

Shelf in bunkroom

"I never saw a man who looked...With such a wistful eye...Upon that little tent of blue...Which prisoners call the sky."

¸.•*´¨`♥ Oscar Wilde (This was on the fort prison door.)

Powder Magazine

The room the above sign is talking about...where the bones were found.

Pews in the fort church

Church window

Barrels in the bunkhouse

On a table in the bunkhouse

Part of the bunkhouse bed frame

Stairs in the bunkhouse

For more than 100 years these doors hung at the sally port.

The lock on port sally door.

A window

St. Peter's Bastion

A closer look at a beautiful canon.