Given the fine state of the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument (daily 8.45am-4.45pm; $4; regular free talks on the fort and local history), on the northern edge of the Old Town beside the bay, it's difficult to believe that the fortress was started in the late 1600s. Its longevity is due to its design: a diamond-shaped rampart at each corner maximized firepower, and 14-foot-thick walls reduced vulnerability to attack. Inside, there's not a lot beyond small cases of exhibits in echoing rooms, but venturing along the 35ft ramparts gives good views across the city and the bay.
The eighteenth-century City Gate marks the entrance to St George Street , once the main thoroughfare and now a tourist-trampled strip. You'll find a lot of places called "The oldest…" in St Augustine; the Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse , set in lush gardens at 14 St George St (daily 9am-5pm; $2.75), is one of the most atmospheric, a restored wooden shack with jerky animatronic dummies portraying nineteenth-century schoolchildren. A fair-sized plot at St George and Cuna is taken up by the excellent Spanish Quarter Living Museum (Sun-Thurs 9am-6pm, until 7pm Fri & Sat; $6.50). In its seven reconstructed homes and workshops, volunteers dressed as Spanish settlers go about their business at spinning wheels, anvils and foot-driven wood lathes.
For a more intimate look at local life during a slightly later period, head for the Peña Peck House , 143 St George St (Mon-Sat 10am-4.30pm, Sun 12.30-4.30pm; $4.50 suggested donation). Thought to have originally been the Spanish treasury, by the time the British took over in 1763 this was the home of a physician and his gregarious spouse, who turned the place into a high society rendezvous. Nearby on Cordova Street, the evocative, overgrown Tolomato Cemetery (9am-6pm) stands on the site of an eighteenth-century Christian Indian village; most graves date from the 1900s.
In the sixteenth century, the Spanish king decreed that all colonial towns must be built around a central plaza; thus St George Street runs into Plaza de la Constitucion , a marketplace from 1598. On the plaza's north side, the Basilica Cathedral of St Augustine (daily 7am-5pm; donation) adds a touch of grandeur, although it's largely a Sixties remake of the late eighteenth-century original. Tourist numbers lessen as you cross south of the plaza into a web of quiet, narrow streets, just as old as St George Street. The Government House Museum , 48 King St (daily 9am-5pm; $2.50), gives an admirably concise and clear history of the changing demography of the colony. Nearby, opposite Flagler College , the classy Lightner Museum (daily 9am-5pm, last admission 4.30pm; $6) displays fine and decorative arts in the former Alcazar Hotel, one of the most fabulous resorts of the late nineteenth century. Rather more prosaically, the Oldest Store Museum at 4 Artillery Lane (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; $5) re-creates a general store of the 1880s, filled to the rafters with more than 100,000 items from dusty top hats, bootscrapers and medicines to cigar molds and wooden washing machines.
More substantial history is unfurled a ten-minute walk away at the fascinating Oldest House , 14 St Francis St (daily 9am-5pm; $5), which is indeed the oldest house in town, dating from the early 1700s. Its rooms are furnished to show how the house - and people's lives - changed as new eras unfolded.
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