Florida Family Getaways - 2008 - (Page 13) family getaways easy to understand why the Vinoy evokes the strongest reactions. “It’s got the tower, and you see the lady in white.” Reeser, like other ghost tour leaders, carefully documents all of the stories on the walks. This makes the tours equally popular with history buffs who want an entertaining trip through town. But it’s still entertainment, not history. “All of the guides are trained storytellers,” says Reeser. Gramling. But today, ghost hunters come to do their “investigations,” and tours stop at each of the 15 haunted sights. At first, the town fathers didn’t know what to make of the tours, and they still don’t, to a certain extent. “There is a lot of skepticism about it,” admits Gramling. But two radio stations came and spent the night at the town’s 1890 Opera House, and visitors, who come to shoot photographs and “get orbs” where they believe they have captured ghosts on camera, leave happy. “People tell these stories,” says Gramling. “You gotta know it’s something.” director to the janitor had different tales to tell. Brihammar decided to open up a ghost store in St. Augustine, and subsequently launched a Haunted Pub Tour and Haunted Hearse Ride. The hearse takes visitors to the lighthouse to check on spirits there, as well as other locations in town. The tour also lends guests an EMF (electromagnetic field) ghost-hunting meter. The hearse tour is always popular. Guests are driven around in a 1974 Cadillac. “It’s very gothic. It’s spooky. It rolls up ‘bum-bum-bum’,” says Brihammar. St. Augustine has become the perfect town for investigations, Brihammar says, and it officially earned a spot on the ghost map when the Sci-Fi Channel came to the lighthouse to check out ghosts in what Brihammar says was the “Mona Lisa of all the investigations.” At first, the Swede was not a believer in ghosts, but after hearing the stories, the tales grew on him. In the end, there have been enough things that he couldn’t disprove. “You don’t have to believe in this stuff to have a good time,” says Brihammar. “[But] I have seen people turn into believers.” Monticello: A Most Haunted Small Town When does the director of a local Chamber of Commerce set up ghost tours? When she is the director of the Chamber of Commerce in Monticello, a city that ghost hunters call the “South’s Most Haunted Small Town.” This town of 2,500 near Tallahassee started seeing ghosts when Mary Frances Gramling, director of the Monticello Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce, began promoting the downtown area through its Main Street program. The group set up a ghost tour as a fundraiser six years ago. They discovered 15 ghosts. Today, ghost hunting with the group Big Ben Ghost Hunters is a regular Monticello event. For 2008, the chamber is setting up monthly tours to satisfy the believers and the curious. “[The town] laughed at us at first because it started out small,” says St. Augustine Fort Lauderdale: Dead Husband Never Arrives Visitors who go on the Ghosts, Mysteries and Legends Tour in Fort Lauderdale see a different side of that beach city. They hear stories about ghost trains, the Bermuda Triangle and haunted balconies. Guide Christian Rieger says most visitors’ favorite story is of the 1907 newlywed who waits at the New River Inn for her husband, who never arrives. The problem? The husband was murdered in New York by the brideto-be’s angry father, who wanted her to become a nun. The stories might seem scary for some, but Rieger says most young children tend to enjoy the idea of ghosts, as they are used to having invisible friends. His tours last about 90 minutes, most guests get a ghostly “orb” photo. “We encourage people to bring digital cameras,” says Rieger. If You Go: Fort Lauderdale’s Ghosts, Mysteries & Legends Tour meets at the northeast corner of Las Olas Boulevard and Andrews Avenue. Tour information is at www.flghosts.com or 954-523-1501. Ghost Tours of St. Augustine gives lantern tours of that historic city including scandalous tales and unsolved mysteries, telephone 904-461-1009 or visit on the web at www.ghosttoursofstaugustine.com. GhoSt Augustine Haunted Pub & Hearse Tours takes visitors in an old Cadillac Fleetwood hearse to hear thoroughly researched crimes and deaths. The company’s pub tour focuses on haunted bars. Information at 904-8248840 or www.ghostaugustine.com. In St. Petersburg, the Ghost Tour of St. Petersburg offers candlelight walking tours. Information at 727-894-4678 or www.ghosttour.net. The Monticello & Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce offers tours. Details online at www.monticellojeffersonfl. com or call 850-997-5552. For more information on abandoned ghost towns around the state, haunted and not, see www.ghosttowns.com/states/fl/fl.html. St. Augustine: Ghost Central When Jonas Brihammar came to the United States from Stockholm, Sweden in 2000, he had won a lottery to work in the United States. He happened upon St. Augustine while passing through, and fell in love with the town. Immediately, he found a position working at the St. Augustine Lighthouse. He got into telling ghost stories there, as the lighthouse is said to be haunted, and everyone from the Family Getaways 13 http://www.flghosts.com http://www.ghosttoursofstaugustine.com http://www.ghostaugustine.com http://www.ghosttour.net http://www.monticellojeffersonfl.com http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/fl/fl.html
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