Old Town Fernandina cemetery
Amelia Island's old burial ground north of downtown, established in the Spanish colonial period and still in use. Live oaks, Spanish moss and graves spanning the island's several nationalities — one of the quietest places on the island.
Bosque Bello — "beautiful woods" — is the island's old burial ground, and it is the quietest twenty minutes on Amelia Island.
A cemetery established in the Spanish colonial period, north of the modern downtown near Old Town Fernandina, and still in use today. The older section is what draws visitors: live oaks hung with Spanish moss over ground that has been a burial place through most of the island's recorded history.
The graves span the island's nationalities and eras — Spanish, British, American, Confederate, and the town's later Victorian and twentieth-century dead. For an island that markets itself on having flown eight flags, this is where the sequence stops being a slogan and becomes a set of names and dates.
Two reasons, and neither is morbid.
It is beautiful. The old live oaks, the moss, the light through the canopy in the early morning or the last hour of the day — this is the kind of Southern coastal landscape people drive a long way to photograph, without a queue.
It is legible history. A cemetery is a primary source you can read standing up: who died young, which years took a lot of people, which families recur, which languages appear on the stones.
Respectfully, and quietly. It is an active cemetery — people are still buried here and families still visit. That means: stay on the paths and drives, do not lean on or climb monuments, do not do gravestone rubbings, keep voices down, and do not photograph a funeral or mourners.
Dogs, if permitted at all, on a leash and under close control. Check the posted rules at the entrance.
Early morning or the last two hours of light, for the canopy light and the quiet. Avoid the middle of a hot afternoon — there is shade, but it is still Florida in July.
Old Town Fernandina and its 1811 Spanish plat, immediately nearby, and Fort Clinch State Park, whose entrance is a couple of minutes away. That trio — the plat, the cemetery and the fort — is the island's history in one short loop, and almost nobody does it.
The cemetery's founding date, its exact acreage, the identity of the oldest surviving marked grave, and the current visitor rules and hours. All are on the verification list; the City of Fernandina Beach and the Amelia Island Museum of History are the sources to ask.
An Italianate villa of 1885 operating as a bed and breakfast in the Fernandina Beach historic district, with rooms in the main house and separate cottages, a pool, and breakfast included — one of the district's larger and better-known inns.
A boutique hotel in a converted 1886 schoolhouse in the Fernandina Beach historic district, with a pool and a bar — the district's most design-led accommodation and a different register from its Victorian bed and breakfasts.
A by-the-slice and whole-pie pizza counter in downtown Fernandina Beach, on the casual, fast and inexpensive end of the district — the practical answer to feeding a family after a beach day without a full service.
Part of Amelia Island attractions — our full guide to the complete amelia island, florida visitor guide.