Bridge of Lions

The bridge grew out of Florida's frenzied land boom of the 1920s, when developers were filling marshland and dreaming up new neighborhoods along the coast. A crossing to Anastasia Island was meant to open the far shore to that growth, and rather than build something purely practical, the planners chose a design worthy of an old and proud city. Construction ran from 1925 to 1927, and the finished bridge opened dressed in the Mediterranean Revival style then sweeping Florida, with ornamental towers and detailing that softened its steel-and-concrete bones.

Then the boom collapsed. The great Florida land bubble burst before the decade was out, and much of the grand development that the bridge was supposed to feed never came. The crossing itself, though, was already built and already useful, so it stayed, carrying traffic and quietly becoming one of the defining images of St. Augustine long after the speculators had moved on.

The bridge takes its name from a pair of white marble lions that recline at its downtown end. They are copies of the famous Medici lions of Florence, Italy, carved in that same country and given to St. Augustine by Dr. Andrew Anderson, a leading citizen, just as the bridge was being finished. Their names, Fiel and Firme, mean Faithful and Firm, and over the decades they became the city's unofficial mascots, keeping their steady vigil over the water.

When the bridge was rebuilt in the 2000s, the lions were carefully lifted from their pedestals and taken away for safekeeping, and their absence was felt so keenly that their return became a small civic event. Today they sit back in their places at the head of the span, still the picture most visitors carry home, a touch of Renaissance Italy standing guard over a Florida bay.

The Bridge of Lions is a double-leaf bascule bridge, which means the roadway is built in two halves that swing upward from the middle like a pair of gates to let tall boats pass beneath. Watching it open, with the leaves rising and a sailboat slipping through the gap, is one of the small pleasures of a St. Augustine afternoon, and it happens often enough on a busy day that you rarely wait long to see it.

Both sides of the span carry a sidewalk, so the best way to enjoy the bridge is to walk it. From the middle you get an open view back at the town, with the old Spanish fort and the bayfront on one side and the wide Matanzas River running out toward the ocean on the other. By the 1980s the bridge had earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places, and after an extensive early-2000s rehabilitation it was rebuilt to last, so what looks like a period piece is in fact a carefully renewed one.

The bridge sits at the heart of St. Augustine, carrying State Road A1A over Matanzas Bay from the downtown bayfront to Anastasia Island. From the historic district it is an easy walk, and since downtown parking fills fast in season, strolling to the bridge from the plaza or the fort is usually simpler than driving to it. Give yourself time to walk out onto the span and back and to visit the lions at the western end.

Because it is a real working drawbridge, it opens on a set schedule to let boats through, so a short pause now and then is part of the experience rather than a nuisance. Come early in the day or near sunset for the softest light on the marble and the water, and pair the crossing with the fort and bayfront on the town side, or the lighthouse and beaches once you reach the island.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.