You heard my recent trip to Amelia Island left little leisure time. But, I did get to see 3 items of particular interest while I was there. The first was the oldest lighthouse in Florida. Granted, I saw it from a distance, but I DID see it! I wish I had the opportunity to visit it, but tours were not offered on a daily basis and, even if I had the free time, the tour wasn’t available on the day I spotted the lighthouse from afar.
The 2nd item of interest was the oldest bar in Florida. I can’t say I went inside, but I did see it! I heard the Bloody Mary’s were quite a spectacle – adorned with a skewer that included a shrimp and a hush puppy!
Lastly, and the most interesting to me, the third item of interest was the Pippi Longstocking house. In 1988, the original Pippi story by children’s author Astrid Lindgren, was made into a movie, “The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking” which was filmed entirely on Amelia Island, Florida.
Most of the movie was filmed on Centre Street, in the quaint historic downtown Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island’s only city. The ice cream shop in the movie was actually the oldest saloon in Florida that I mentioned above!
The setting of much of the book and the movie was in Pippi’s dilapidated fictional house, the ‘Villa Villekulla.’ Though in the movie the house looked unkempt, disheveled, and badly in need of a fresh coat of white paint, the present state of the movie house looked a little different. You can see that the weathered white clapboards so prominently featured in the film are currently an olive green siding!
Even if you hadn’t been a Pippi fan, the 146 year old house was something to see – known for having a wider variety of gingerbread motifs, such as sunbursts, fish scales, clovers, brackets, globes, scallops, circles, diamonds, and Maltese crosses than any other in Fernandina Beach, according to a historic museum tour guide.
If you have an interest in the Amelia Island or in the book Pippi Longstocking, you may want to watch the 1988 film “The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking” described as a fantasy musical with a cast that included Eileen Brennan, Dick Van Patten and John Schuck.
Thanks for stopping by Friday field trip to Villa Villekulla!
Have a wonderful weekend and remember to take pleasure in simple things…like reading a favorite children’s story! Jackie xo