St. Augustine Ponte Vedra 2008 Travel Planner - (Page 24) Past and Present on the BEACHES By Lynn Waddell T here’s perhaps no other beach area in Florida that offers such a variety of sights and activities. One minute you can be strolling a deserted coquina shore as a whale surfaces nearby, the next you can be climbing a colonial fort, hanging ten with surfers or driving your Chevy on a sandy beach. Most of the area beaches are protected from development, and the ones that aren’t maintain an old Florida feel with low-rise hotels and mom-and-pop stores and restaurants. As part of one of the nation’s oldest settlements, the beaches also retain historic structures and communities, adding an intriguing layer of complexity. Old Florida Traditions One of my favorite things about the beach towns in the St. Augustine and Ponte Vedra area is their authentic quaintness, something that’s becoming harder to find elsewhere in the world. Thanks to strict height limits, you’ll find no massive condo towers. Plus, driving is still permitted on a few beaches, continuing an area tradition that’s been around about as long as cars. You can put rubber to the sand on designated areas of St. Augustine Beach, Crescent Beach and Vilano Beach. Across the Bridge of Lions from the historic city, St. Augustine Beach, the most developed of the coastal towns, is a year-round home to fewer than 6,000 people. Beach activity centers around the St. Johns County Pier where you can fish and often watch surfers catch waves. To the south on an even narrower slice of the island, I find Crescent Beach, a small community primarily made up of beach homes, an ideal place to sun nostalgically and cool down with a brew on the ocean-side deck of the South Beach Grille. A glutton for antiques and retro wares, I scour the antiques shops as I head to Vilano Beach to collect shells. The small pedestrian-friendly shopping district is by the Vilano Fishing Pier. 24
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