By Carol and Ray Fischer, our "Romantic Getaways" correspondents. They love to travel, together, to warm places, exciting cities, and any place with a casino. As long as they are together, it doesn't matter where they go. They can always find romance.

There are few places one can visit as a child and return to years (a half century!) later to find it as it exists in our memories.

Red Train©Ray Fischer

St. Augustine, Florida, is such a city, welcoming tourists to its rich Spanish heritage where horse drawn carriages clip-clop down original cobblestone streets beneath lush trees laden with garlands of moss.

Buildings steeped in history abound. We scoped out a plan on our first swoop around the city on its Red Train, an open-air vehicle which snakes around the sights as its entertaining driver narrates the ride. On the second pass, we disembarked at the stops which begged us to visit: the Fountain of Youth, Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, the Castillo de San Marcos, the Lightner Museum and several galleries brimming with local art.

Off the train route but no less intriguing, the scenic harbor cruise aboard Victory III provided a relaxing break from the heat of the city. We were torn between the views of the Spanish architecture along the wharf and the dolphins feeding just off the starboard side of our boat.

Back on land, with just a bit of remaining energy, we drove to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, an amazing attraction featuring the only known collection of all 23 species of alligators in the world. Hourly shows were educational and interesting.

Lightner Museum©Ray Fischer

Its swamp trail led us through a forest of nesting water birds, tree branches bent with the weight of hundreds of homes to babies and their soon-to-hatch cousins. Not for the faint of heart, the swamp with its occasional “feather mouthed” alligator reminded us that both in the wild and in captivity there is an order to nature.

Bursting with the pleasure of our day but exhausted, we headed to the primary reason for our visit to this unique historic city: our first stay at one of its many bed and breakfast inns.

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