I’ve never been able to resist visiting a historical location when I’m in the area, so it stands to reason that we would visit Castillo de San Marcos while we were in St Augustine. This time, however, I didn’t think we would have enough time to explore inside, but we were invited to join Harry’s friend, which worked out perfectly.

The History of Castillo de San Marcos

Castillo de San Marcos was built by the Spanish, as its name may suggest. It was the city’s response to a raid led by Robert Searle, AKA John Davis, (an English pirate) who planned to return and make the location their base.

Queen Regent Mariana of Spain was the one who decided that the city needed to construct a permanent defence fortification out of local stone (coquina), instead of the basic wooden forts that were defending St Augustine at the time.

Since then, the fort has withstood many moments in history, including two sieges, a civil war and a world war.

Coquina

If you speak Spanish, you will know that coquina means “tiny shell”, which might have confused you when I said that the Castillo de San Marcos was made using it. However, the stone named coquina was created over many years out of the small shells that can be found on the beach.

Coquina stone is actually quite fascinating as it was discovered when the Castillo was first attacked after its construction. The canon balls that were fired, simply fell back into the ocean after their momentum was absorbed by the stone.

Castillo de San Marcos Today

When visiting you can explore the gun deck which not only has breath-taking views (which as you know I love) but also has canons lining the walls, and occasionally a demonstration on firing them.

Then, inside they have exhibits set up to talk about life back then and the history of the fort, which is incredibly interesting.

Conclusion

The Castillo de San Marcos is a great place to visit if you enjoy learning the history of the place. Not only can you explore a historic attraction, but you can also enjoy beautiful surroundings as well.