Shortly after we arrived here in St. Augustine, we saw preparations taking place to dress up the downtown area with annual Christmas cheer. We’d heard that St. Augustine did a particularly nice job at this, but were totally unprepared for what we were about to see. Lights and decorations adorn the city from November 19th through January 31st in a display called “Nights of Lights”. Paula and I decided to walk into town on the opening night of this display to check it out. We didn’t know it at the time, but no lesser an authority than National Geographic has named St. Augustine’s “Night of Lights” one of the top 10 holiday lighting displays in the World!

The first thing we noticed as we approached the center of town was the large number of people streaming in, including a significant international presence. Everyone was nice and polite, despite the crowd, and the displays were absolutely magnificent. St. Augustine is already a very nicely lit city at night to begin with, and all the holiday lighting added on top of that is really something. The below are pictures try to convey some of the magnitude of this display, but they cannot capture the true 3-D effect of the lights when you are standing there.