Florida’s Military Museums Honor Our Veterans and More

Posted on July 6, 2016 by floridatraveler

There are 1.5 million Floridians who served in the United States Armed Forces so it is not surprised that there are dozens of memorial gardens and local museums to honor the military past and present.  My father met my mother while training at Drew Field for the Third Air Force (Army) and Florida was home to dozens of airbases and other training facilities.

There are several dozen large museums that not only provide a great family excursion, many of them are free to the public and supported by the contributions of Floridians who wish to honor our service men and women.

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Cape Canaveral Rocket Launch Room

Here are some of the most distinguished museums and attractions and some that cover a specific area.

The National Naval Aviation Museum at NAS in Pensacola is home to the amazing Blue Angels and is one of the largest and most beautiful air and space museums in the world. There are over 140 beautifully restored aircraft representing Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard Aviation and an IMAX Theater.

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The museum is free and due to increasing security around American military installations, you might want to call (800) 327-5002, or go online to see if any exhibits or areas are restricted.

Eastward along the Panhandle’s white beaches is the huge Eglin Air Force Base, home to the Air Force Armament Museum, open everyday but Sunday.  Call (850) 651-1808 for the latest information.

FLORIDATRAVELER air force armament museum map

The Air Force Armament Museum is the only museum in the world dedicated to the collection, preservation and exhibition of artifacts and memorabilia associated with Air Force Armament and its platforms of delivery. It is not bunch of photographs but a fleet of vintage military aircraft including the fastest plane ever built – the SR-71 Blackbird!

Florida’s military museums are not just airplanes.  I love the Navy Seal Museum on North Hutchinson Island in Fort Pierce.  Located near where the Naval Combat Demotion Units and Underwater Demolition Teams, the forefathers of today’s SEALS, started training, the museum captures the secret world of these brave divers.

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Up the Atlantic Coast are the huge rockets of the Air Force Space and Missile Museum, located at Complex 26 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

It includes artifacts from the early American space program and includes an outdoor “rocket garden” displaying rockets, missiles and space-related equipment chronicling the story of the US Air Force.

FLORIDATRAVELER rocket garden at airforce canaveral

The museum is open to the public as a part of the “Cape Canaveral: Then and Now” tour offered by the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex four days  per week and by free tours offered by the Air Force 45th Space Wing Community Relations office.

For a more personal look at Florida during World War II, you might want to visit the unique NAS Fort Lauderdale Museum, also known as the Link Trainer Building #8.   The site near the airport has reconstructed the barracks where pilots lived and trained – few exist today and none like you stepped back into the 1940’s.

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You’ll recognize quickly that one of the rooms replicates the 1943 bedroom of a 19-year old trainee named George H. W. Bush.  The buildings support beams of Florida Eastern Dade County Pine are made of a now extinct tree.

For more recent American history you might want to visit the small but imposing Museum and Library of the 2506 Assault Brigade in Miami at 1821 SW 9th Street. It is the story of the fatal Bay of Pigs Invasion and all the Cuban-Americans that took part in that event.

There are a number of museums containing ships from American wars.  The most impressive is the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Ingham Maritime Museum in Key West.   The Ingham is the most decorated vessel in U.S. service, the only Coast Guard ship earning two Presidential Unit Citations.

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There is an admission charge since this is a non-profit venture to preserve and honor one of the two last remaining cutter ships from World War II.

Every region of Florida has one or more military museums or parks.  In the Tampa Bay area, I love the Armed Forces History Museum in Largo.  The AFHM houses in its 35,000 square feet of indoor space fully operational tanks, jeeps, and armor, while outside are airplanes, even a replica of Chuck Yeager’s Supersonic Jet Bell X1, which broke the sound barrier.

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Join the WWII Troops In France in 1945

One of the more unusual museum elements is the recreation of military environments such as walking through an underground WWI bunker, spying on a Japanese island observation tower, and creeping along a French street after the Normandy invasion.

It is a great family experience to visit Florida’s military past.

 

 

 

 

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Florida’s Best State Parks With Great Beaches

Posted on June 28, 2016 by floridatraveler

Florida has miles and miles of great beaches, but more and more of them are lined with condos and multi-storied hotels.  If you want a Florida beach with a wonderful all-natural view, you might consider a Florida State Park.

For too many visiting vacationers, Florida’s State Park system is still the most underrated tourist attraction.  Here are my favorite Florida State Park beach settings.

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Bahia Honda State Park, Bahia Honda Key

 The Florida Keys is wonderful for diving and fishing and boating, but good natural beaches are shockingly rare.  Sitting almost under the Overseas Highway at MM37 is this wonderful park, with two beaches, great snorkeling spots, and glorious sunsets.  Like all major Florida parks, there are campsites and cabins, but they fill up fast all year round.  The Sand and Sea Nature Center is a great addition to the park.

St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, Port St. Joe

 You can’t miss the St. Joseph Peninsula State Park on a map of the Florida Panhandle for it resembles a reversed Cape Cod.  With 9.5 miles of usually empty snow white beaches extending northward beyond the end of the road, the park is vast.  Exploring it past the cabins and Class A RV park, and campsites, you will see towering dune formations, heavy forests, and wildlife that seem oblivious to your presence.

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St. Joseph: The bay to the right and the Gulf to the left

Go to the bay-side and you’ll see clear water for snorkeling and kayaking.   While the summer is the big time for the Panhandle, winter visitors get the treat of sharing their views of nature without other humans.

Caladesi Island State Park, off Dunedin

 While you can actually walk from North Clearwater Beach over to Caladesi, most people take the ferry from Honeymoon Island to this great barrier island.  Selected as America’s best beach in 2008, Caladesi has more than white sand beaches.  It has a terrific three mile nature trail, a full marina, concessions, and recreational rentals.  The best part of this park is it is minutes away from the large cities of Tampa Bay.

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 Sebastian Inlet State Park, South Melbourne

 Famous as the most consistent surfing location on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, Sebastian Inlet is also host to a great state park which gives access to miles of lagoon side kayaking, boating, and fishing.  There are few outdoor activities you can not do at Sebastian Inlet.

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North of the Inlet is the State Park on left and surf on right

The Visitors Centers are actually in two unique museums: the McLarty Treasure Museum, housing some of the treasure of 1715 Spanish fleet wreck off the Inlet, and the Sebastian Fishing Museum, which shows how good fishing is off the jetties.  People have indeed found Spanish coins on the beaches in this area.

Lovers Key State Park, Fort Myers Beach

 South of Fort Myers Beach, minus the motels and condos, is Lovers Key State Park with its two miles of natural beach and winding inlets and lagoons.  To get to the beach, you park and take a tram over a bridge.  You are surrounded by nature at this park.   It is said this was where the famous female pirate Anne Bonny “honeymooned” with her pirate cohort “Calico Jack” Rackham.    With five miles of hiking and biking trails and canoe and kayak rentals, you too can play pirates in paradise.

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Grayton Beach State Park

There are miles of wonderful beaches in the Panhandle, but Grayton Beach State Park has soon stunning features.  The 2,000 acre park has a rare coastal lake surrounded by towering dunes and a forest of magnolias and scrub oaks.  The one mile beach of sugar white sand is rated in every beach poll, but few people realize how good the camping and cabin sites are.

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Dunes at Grayton (Photo by Laurie Ausley)

This is one spot where you can do excellent saltwater and freshwater fishing within ten minutes of each other.  The park gets high marks for kayaking, canoeing, and paddle-boarding.

Big Talbot Island State Park

 The Boneyard Beach of Big Talbot Island is the place to pretend you are in a Robinson Crusoe situation.  The beautiful sand beach is strewn with the bleached skeletons of thousands of dead trees whose shapes twist oddly in every direction.   There is no camping at this place.  It is reserved for enjoying nature with picnics, kayaking into the swamps, bird-watching, and maybe an isolated picnic.

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Big Talbot Looks Like An Adventure

Big Talbot is the location that has won dozens of National Gold Medals for geo-seeking games.  Almost every weekend you will see a group of treasure hunters looking not for Spanish coins but for natural landmarks.

 

 

 

Posted in adventure vacation, attractions, conservation, environment, florida history, Florida parks, Florida sports, Historic Buildings, museums, Recreational Experiences, travel | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Florida and Alligators – A Love-Hate Relationship

Posted on June 19, 2016 by floridatraveler

Last week was a very negative week for the Sunshine State and particularly for Orange County (Orlando) with the mass assassination at the Pulse nightclub and the killing of a two year old Nebraska boy by an alligator at the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa at Disney World.

I’m sure many people were shocked there were alligators in a man-made lake, the Seven Seas Lagoon that millions cross every year to get to the Magic Kingdom.  How can this be?  The reality:  If it is fresh water and its Florida – there are gators.

Long time Floridians know that June is the end of the alligator mating season which starts in April with the loud bellowing of male gators in search of females and the romance cycle continues in May and sometimes June.  The development of Florida into the third most populated state in the nation has put both man and gator at greater risk. Male alligators in particular will travel across Interstate highways and golf courses to locate that lucky pond with a female gator.

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May 2016: in mating season gators can be mean-spirited.

May and June is a dangerous time for small dogs and even cats whose owners reside alongside Florida lakes.  Nighttime is when gators come out to eat and all across the Deep South you can floodlight the nearest canal and be surprised to see the shiny eyes of alligators staring at you.  There is a good reason to build seawalls if you live on a Florida canal.

There are 1.3 million gators in Florida and almost 20 million people.  The fact that there are just one or two fatal gator attacks in Florida each year on the average is a statistic that shows that gators usually avoid humans and are mainly active at night.

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Sarasota statue spoofs Florida icons of old people, gators, and crime.

Florida and alligators have a strange love-hate relationship going back to the earliest paintings of Florida made by French artist Jacque le Moyne in 1564 at the colony of Fort Caroline on the St Johns River.  LeMoyne was shocked to see the Timucuans clearing the land and killing what Le Moyne viewed as giant creatures.  Of course, explorers wanted to see these gators when they saw the art work.

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Florida gators were never 40-foot monsters.

Alligators have played a key role in the promotion of Florida as a tropical and exotic place.  By 1900 there were thirty alligator farms in Florida since it was easy to catch gators and stick them in a pit and charge admission.  To boost sales, we got gators to jump for fish and hired Seminoles to wrestle gators.

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The gator became the mascot of the University of Florida.   The gator became a popular symbol on Florida souvenirs.  Now we eat alligators at many Florida restaurants.  Gator tastes like chicken.  Gator meat is low in fat and cholesterol and high in protein. It is available in a variety of cuts including tail meat fillets, ribs, and kids meal nuggets.   My wife would like us to eat all the gators in Florida.

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 Go Gators! But stay out of my backyard!

But alligators have been around since prehistoric times.  They are survivors and removing them from a lake is a difficult task.   Some new gators might show up the next mating system for bull gators drive the smaller male gators to look for new places to stay – like your backyard pool.

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Unofficial Guide To Florida Beachside Restaurants

Posted on June 13, 2016 by floridatraveler

It’s summertime in Florida and both tourists and locals are heading to Florida’s 663 miles of beach (not shoreline – beach). Part of the sandy excursion for many adults is a stop at a restaurant on the beach for burgers, seafood, and lots of cold refreshment.  The older you get, the more important the food becomes compared to the warm water and hot sun.

I have a few rules about what constitutes a “real beach-side restaurant” – first, it must be ON the beach.  Not across from the beach which is often the case in Miami and Fort Lauderdale and other urban haunts. You want to be able to go from restaurant to water in sixty seconds!  Restaurant owners are as sneaky as resort PRers when it comes to website descriptions.

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Beach food should come on paper plates: seafood, seafood!

“Waterfront restaurant” in Florida may mean it is on the Intracoastal Waterway or bayside.  “Ocean view” may even mean a narrow speck of blue water between two condos.  If the diners are wearing anything less than shorts and beachwear, you can be suspicious of its location. Even restaurant websites can disguise shortcomings so I like to examine the customer photographs in Yelp and Tripadvisor.

To my criteria, a good “beachside restaurant” is on a public beach, preferably near a pier and beach volleyball courts.  The view should not be buried behind twenty foot sand dunes and the menu should be Florida or tropical and the drink list as long as the food listings.

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My Summer Hangout: Frenchy’s Rockaway on Clearwater Beach

My favorite nearby beach-side restaurant is Frenchy’s Rockaway Grill on Clearwater’s North Beach parking by the Art Deco hotel and the 1920’s beach pavilion.  Great grouper dishes, large menu, great views of volleyball and North Pier.  Like many places, you better arrive early to get the best parking.

Here are some of the best beachside restaurants I know:

Salute On the Beach on Atlantic Boulevard in Key West is not just distinctive in its funky open-air beachside ambiance, it makes seafood Italian style on its menu.

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Salute in Key West is ON the beach

I love to vacation over at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, a compact concave of hotels, restaurants, and shops with a downtown strip seconds from the beach.  There by the City Pier is the cool Aruba Beach Café, where as one might expect there is always a party going on.  Look for big tropical drinks, live Caribbean music, and good seafood.

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It seems that having a nice fishing pier sets the stage for the correct beachside restaurant.  That’s the case with Benny’s on the Beach by Lake Worth Pier on South Ocean Boulevard.  If you have ever visited Daytona Beach, you probably have heard about the Ocean Deck Restaurant and Beach Club.   The three-story complex has been serving seafood and loud reggae music since 1940.

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Benny’s Is Not One of Those Expensive Pier Restaurants

Jacksonville Beach has several beachside places, but I like the outdoor seating and Mexican menu at The Pier Cantina and Sandbar.   A good margarita even enhances the nearby view of Jacksonville Pier.

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I once lived in the Panhandle and its newly beachside communities attract younger families from the Deep South.  It’s hard to pick one in Panama City, but I’ll select the Hooked Pier Bar and Grill with all the necessary ingredients:  view of pier, on the beach, fish tacos that are killers, and lots of parking at a nearby shopping center.

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Since we started at Key West, we must end 700 miles away on Pensacola Beach.  The Casino Beach Bar and Grill down Fort Pickens Road serves up signature glorious seafood and drinks from 7 am to 2 am in the summer months.

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Casino Beach has a pier and a great seafood grille.

Have a wonderful trip to the beach and visit a beachside restaurant.

Posted in adventure vacation, beer, dining, Florida Food, florida history, Florida sports, florida vacations, food, Historic Buildings, Restaurants, travel | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Craft Brewing Is Big Business In Florida

Posted on June 6, 2016 by floridatraveler

The craft beer industry has boomed in Florida in the last years, even in the Panhandle.

Vicente Martinez Ybor not only brought the cigar industry to Tampa (Ybor City) in 1885. he constructed Florida’s first brewing company (1897), the Florida Brewing Company, on the Government Spring used by the soldiers of Fort Brooke.  It dominated beer sales for many generations in Florida since Northern brews were poorly distributed.

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Still an Ybor City Landmark The Florida Brewing Company

The next year Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders partied at the brewery. The six-story business remained Ybor City’s tallest enterprise until it closed in 1961.

FLORIDATRAVELER BILL BOYD as TEDDY

The building now houses lawyers, but it seems appropriate that Tampa has Florida’s best known craft brewery, Cigar City Brewery.  The business is almost becoming a Tampa icon.

CCB’s taproom and plant is in West Tampa on Spruce Street, while their brewpub is up Dale Mabry Highway in Carrollwood.  You can even visit their bar at Tampa International Airport.  Today  young people in Tampa only think  Jai Alai is a beer in a bottle.

There are too many nifty craft breweries to mention even a small percentage of them in this article, but here are some of our favorites across the Sunshine State.

Over in Pinellas County in Dunedin is the Dunedin Brewery, Florida’s oldest craft brewery and besides crafting 15 barrels at a time and giving tours, the place hosts local bands and social events.   The cool interior, good food, great entertainment, and classy service remain high points here.

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Dunedin is a small town with a lot of fine pubs.

It may seem odd a Florida brewery is producing award winning selections like Snowed In (Stout) and Last Snow (American Porter), but the Funky Buddha Brewery in Oakland Park is probably the most innovative brewery in Florida.

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This brewery has probably won more serious craft beer competitions than any other brewery in Florida.  This is a place for serious beer drinkers.

A special tribune goes to Miami’s first craft brewery, the Wynwood Brewing Company, for they had to fight half of the city and its zoning laws to get the business in Dade County. They also renovated an old garment warehouse, an important part of the birth of the Wynwood Art District.

Most importantly, Wynwood makes good craft beers, having won a GABF gold medal for their Pop’s Porter.  Their success boomed craft brewing in South Florida.

The funkiest brewery is the Swamp Head Brewery serving Gainesville. The quality of their beers, despite names like Wild Night and Big Nose, less I forget Cottonmouth and Saison du Swamp, attracts droves of Florida coeds and beer-thirsty locals.  It is the only brewhouse I have ever seen with outdoor tanks.

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The people of Gainesville can’t miss this advertisement.

Green Room Brewing on Jacksonville Beach may be beachside casual, dogs allowed, and BYOF (that’s food), but it also has sixteen taps rotating as many seasonal and regular brews.  But, I’m not sure I want a Barleywine called Undertow.

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The Panhandle has been adding craft breweries from Tallahassee to the Alabama State Line, but we give our hats off the Grayton Beer Company on Santa Rosa Beach.  They know their beer and have good food, and have a warehouse game-room that even meant kids had a good time.

Craft beer has become such a key entertainment and food industry that visitors don’t have far to look for a brewery.  Beerinflorida.com  and floridacraftbeerfinder.com will show you the nearest place and their specialties.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in attractions, beer, dining, Florida Food, florida history, florida vacations, food, Historic Buildings, Restaurants | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Goody Goody: Return of a Florida Icon

Posted on May 31, 2016 by floridatraveler

Most cities have a restaurant or store that has become an icon because of its long history and its role in the lives of decades of loyal customers.  When a business like that closes, regardless of reason, it leaves an empty space in the hearts and minds of locals.  It is rare that such a place returns from the dead – particularly when the building is rubble.

But that is what is happening in Tampa – the Goody Goody Restaurant, complete with its original sign, is reopening in Hyde Park Village at 1601 West Swann.  More ironic is that its restorer is Richard Gonzmart, owner of the largest Spanish restaurant in the world, the Columbia in Ybor City.  Like so many Tampans, Gonzmart grew up eating at Goody Goody and loved the place. He not only obtained the brand, but located much of the place’s furniture and signs rusting in a dump yard.

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The New Goody Goody Soon To Open in Hyde Park Village

Goody Goody was actually born in 1925 in Hanibal, Missouri, by Oklahomans Ralph and Amanda Stephens.  It was their third try at operating a restaurant and when it folded, the Stephens came to Tampa during the Florida Land Boom.  They were so broke, they lived at first in a tent.

It was late 1925 when they reestablished Goody Goody as a drive-in barbecue joint at 1603 Grand Central Avenue (now Kennedy Blvd) at what is now a KFC/Taco Bell complex.  Later they moved the business to Seminole Heights and Florida Avenue.  In 1929, with the Boom over, the Stephens decided to return to Oklahoma. They sold Goody to William B. Stayer, a Pittsburgh insurance man, who came to Florida after his second divorce.

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The Downtown Original (pic by Tampapix.com)

Strayer and his new wife Sadie wanted to buy a restaurant in Tampa and the sale proved to be a perfect match.  They moved the restaurant just north of downtown on Florida Avenue on a spot where Goody stayed from April 3, 1930 to November 30, 2005.  It was an ideal spot before the Interstates for drivers took Florida Avenue to go to and from downtown jobs.  The drive-in was packed with automobiles for fifty years.

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1941 Business Hangout (photo by Tampapix.com)

The Strayers sold Goody Goody in the 1980’s to local lawyer Mike Wheeler.  The amazing thing I recall most about this restaurant was the fact that people worked here for dozens of years and visitors were treated like next door neighbors.   With the growth of downtown interstate highways and people moving away from the area, Goody began to lose its customer base.  Regulars who now lived miles away came just to celebrate famous occasions that took place at G-G.

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People were hopeful when the restaurant got a total rehabilitation in 2004 and was even the location for a movie scene.   To the shock of many, Goody Goody closed its doors in 2005 and was soon a pile of rubble.   But Richard Gonzmart knew that the place was meaningful to thousands of Tampans and just needed a new home at the right time and in the right place.

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Goody Was The Scene In 2004 The Punisher

He was evidently right.  The Goody Goody restaurant Facebook site had over 6,000 likes months before the place was open.

Goody not only hopes to grow in its new Hyde Park upscale home.  In the near future people arriving at Air Terminal C at Tampa International Airport will see Goody Goody at the newly developing Marketplace.

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Palm Beach Is A Great Summer Vacation Spot

Posted on May 24, 2016 by floridatraveler

When May comes around in Florida, the snow birds and high rollers have departed and most of the automobile tourists are waiting for the kids to finish schools.  It is a time of year when vacationers can often avoid high prices and crowded summer beaches.

Palm Beach is a nice place to visit this time of year.  You can actually get a decent table at the island’s fancier restaurants and some of the most glamorous resorts are offering special deals.

The arrival in the 1890’s of the railroad of Henry Flagler opened up Palm Beach to the world  and hotels like the monstrous Royal Poinsettia and Whitehall became the winter playgrounds for the Victorian rich.  Yet it wasn’t until the Florida Land Boom and the Mediterranean Revival architecture of Addison Mizner that Palm Beach became the winter domain and hideaway of the very rich.

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Flagler’s Whitehall mansion is now a state museum

Flagler’s wooden Whitehall fell to the termites and his private railroad car complete with gold toilet fixtures is the only thing on the Whitehall Resort property.  Flagler’s legacy stands with The Breakers, now the 1926 version.  One May in the 1960’s I took a group of high school students to a convention here in the 1960’s and while the students attended meetings, I took off to the empty pool for a morning dip.

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There was an elderly man having breakfast by the pool and he signaled me to join him. It turned out he was John D. MacArthur, one of the richest men in the world.  Things like this happen in Palm Beach.

The Florida Land Boom was the next great era for Palm Beach.  It was an age when great architects like Addison Mizner and Joseph Urban did their magic with Mediterranean Revival styling of fancy mansions, commercial districts, and public buildings.  The result: Palm Beach is today an architect’s dream spot.

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Mizner’s first project – the Everglades Club – started a PB Boom

When the streets and roads are less crowded downtown Palm Beach is a nicely compacted district with great buildings.  Two of my favorite ones are the 1926 Palm Beach City Hall

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and the 1927 Paramount Theater designed by  Joseph Urban.

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Perhaps today the greatest contribution to Florida architecture since everyone can enjoy it is the Worth Avenue shopping district with its share of Mizner buildings and neat alleyways.  Whether you can afford any of the merchandise or not, you love the atmosphere and recognize how upscale Florida shopping centers have tried to capture the Palm Beach look in their design.

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I took this Worth Avenue photo at 10 am Saturday morning

I love to visit historical areas early to take photographs that are not crowded with tourists and automobiles.  One morning in Palm Beach I entered a music shop and found myself one of only two customers.  The other person was Rod Stewart.

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The Mizner Alleyway

Be sure to visit all the narrow alleyway streets off Worth Avenue for they house some delightful shops, offices, and even a few places to grab a casual meal.

 

 

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Hot Times In Summer At Lesser Known Hotels

Posted on May 17, 2016 by floridatraveler

It is summertime in Florida and while we have a large population of Floridians going North to the North Carolina mountains and visiting family, more and more Floridians are exploring hotels within the state.   Summer is also the time that the Panhandle and North Florida resorts have warm water and more activities.

I suggest people explore around the entire state of Florida for you will be amazed at the diversity and quality of Florida resorts, which many people have never visited.

Do you want a family vacation in a recreational Disney World atmosphere minus the theme park crowds?  Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort on South Walton Beach will astound you: four resort areas with 30 neighborhoods with every kind of accommodation at varying price ranges.  From hotel rooms to condos to villas and town houses, all visitors get to use the seven miles of beach, four golf courses, and marinas.

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Sandestin Resembles A Resort City

If you want to stay in South Florida, your family might enjoy Hammock Beach Resort at Palm Coast.  The 311-unit upscale family recreation resort has two golf courses, tennis courts, five restaurants, a private beach, and my favorite relaxation spot: a lazy river.

If you are a couple and want an urban experience with great shopping and attractions, you might want to book a weekend at The Alford Inn in Winter Park.    Located in a classy Orlando area town with the lakefront Rollins Collins, this hotel is surrounded by shops and quality restaurants, several shockingly good art museums, and a must-take boat tour through the winding canals connecting all the lakes.

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Just Outside The Alford is downtown Winter Park

Saint Augustine is always a different vacation place and the Casa Monica Hotel on a Square near the Cathedral is one of the last Victorian resorts once owned by Henry Flagler.  Beside a great restaurant, you will be in a location between the historic district and the wonderful residential area south of the downtown Square.

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Return to Victorian Florida at the Casa Monica

If you want to vacation by the beach this summer and try an area you have never seen, you might look up The Pearl Hotel in Rosemary Beach, with its wild architecture and top-rated facilities and four star restaurant.  This area has some of Florida’s best outdoor attractions.

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The Pearl Combines Modern and Eclectic Architecture

Another choice is the Water Color Inn and Resort on Santa Rosa Beach.  It is a water sports paradise with a Water Camp for kids. There are three golf courses, restaurants, spas, and some of Florida’s nicest beach-side dunes.

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The Water Color Inn has beach and dune scenery.

Here in the Tampa Bay area, I have friends who like to go over to Saint Petersburg Beach but are not sun-worshippers.  They stay at the Hotel Zamora, a fancy retreat on the Intracoastal Waterway just minutes from the shops and restaurants.

FLORIDATRAVELER hotelzamora

For people who want more traditional choices in familiar places, take a look at the Ocean Key Resort and Spa on Key West and the Palms Hotel on Miami Beach.  Not as famous as nearby resorts but great oceanfront rooms and suites match anything in the area.  At the Palms you can have a five course meal in the privacy of a romantic garden.

FLORIDATRAVELER viewfromthepalms

The Palms in Miami Beach Is Very Tropical At the Beach

Posted in attractions, dining, florida history, Florida sports, florida vacations, food, Historic Hotels & Inns, Recreational Experiences, Restaurants, travel | Leave a comment

Florida Boardwalks Go More Native In The Summertime

Posted on May 9, 2016 by floridatraveler

For a state with so much beachfront, it is shocking how few Florida coastal communities have Victorian style waterfront boardwalks, complete with restaurants, souvenir shops, and amusements.   Excluding inland lake frontages (WDW’s Boardwalk) and river-walks like the new one in Tampa, here are my favorites.

The 2.5 mile 1925 terracotta-colored Hollywood Beach Boardwalk is still special and unique. It caters more to nostalgia and is more adult-oriented as a beachfront.  Some of its long time restaurants like the Sugar Reef Grill and Istanbul are popular with people who remember the debut of “Where The Boys Are.”

floridatraveler hollywood broadwalk

In the winter, armies of French-speaking Canadians give the beachfront a more cosmopolitan sound.  Recently there was great fear that the Fall 2015 opening of the gigantic Margaritaville Resort, with its 349 rooms and music venue would overwhelm the old atmosphere and image of the Boardwalk.

The resort is getting great reviews and the people are still coming to the Boardwalk despite the loss of one of the site’s largest parking lot.  Imagine this: in Florida they replace a parking lot with Jimmy Buffett.

floridatraveler margaritaville_southviewfrombeach

My favorite “young family” boardwalk is the 1938 somewhat modernized Daytona Beach Boardwalk, even though a street separates the shops from the walkway and beach.  A 1000 foot pier, fun arcades, mini go-carts, slingshot rides, and overpriced saltwater taffy reminds me of Atlantic City or Ocean City.

On the West Coast Pier 60 at Clearwater Beach makes the 1080 foot pier the focal point for a “Key West” style sunset, complete with stilt walkers, magicians and live music.  You have to cross the street for the huge selection of restaurants and shops, although both ends of the park have large beachside resorts.

FLORIDATRAVELER Pier-60

Waiting For The Sunset Rituals

I give half-credit to nearby Johns Pass Village and Boardwalk with its huge marina, complete with a pirate ship, loads of decent seafood restaurants, numerous festivals, and tourist shops.  It’s only problem is it is not on the ocean directly, but on a pass a short walk to the Gulf of Mexico.

floridatraveler johns_pass_madeira

For a relaxing and low key boardwalk atmosphere, I top my hat toward Times Square at Fort Myers Beach, where good parking next to the pier, lots of live entertainment restaurants, and good shopping give visitors a good time.

FLORIDATRAVELER TIMES SQUARE ft myers beach

Where-ever you vacation in Florida for old fashioned beachside fun.

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New Southern Cooking Is Growing Across Florida

Posted on May 4, 2016 by floridatraveler

Ask a visitor about food in Florida and they will probably first mention seafood – stone crabs, grouper, mullet, shrimp.  Thanks to Miami and Ybor City, Cuban and Latin American food will be mentioned by some tourists.

Southern cooking is just not something that is identified with Florida.  There are no “Florida style BBQ restaurants or Florida fried chicken dives.”  Most down home Southern places are mainly associated with small towns in Florida just off the Interstate highways.

But recently there has a tremendous boom in Florida of award-winning “New Southern” restaurants often located in the least likely spot, such as in the middle of trendy South Beach.  There stands the Yardbird Southern Table and Bar with the delightful URL of runchickenrun.

FLORIDATRAVELER yardbird

This doesn’t look like Miami Beach.

For a person who remembers eating at Wolfies in Miami Beach, it is hard to imagine the sun-tanned South Beach in-crowd dining on exotic Southern comfort food loaded with bourbon.

No less food guru as Anthony Bourdain said it’s Southern comfort food the way Southern comfort food gets prepared in my dreams.” The place is even going West.  There’s a new Yardbird at The Venetian in Las Vegas.

floridatraveler SHRIMP and GRITS at yardbird miami beach bourbon everywhere

Shrimp and grits at the Yardbird.

Over on my coast, on Central Avenue in downtown Saint Petersburg, diners line up like a Disney World ride at The Mill for Ted Dorsey’s Sunday brunch where you can munch down fried trout benedict or cornbread waffles, and pancakes mixed with every vegetable produced in Florida.  The place is packed all week with fans of Southern-fried frog legs, wild game, and cider mussels.

floridatraveler the mill lambshank pot pie

It’s lambshank pot pie at The Mill

Central Avenue downtown Orlando is the home of another booming new South restaurant called Soco, the brain child of former Emeril chef – Greg Richie.  Robert E. Lee would be stunned to watch Richie grill watermelon with rock shrimp, turn boiled peanuts into hummus, and make Mornay pimiento cheese on pork chops.  On Thursday crowds show up for Build-a-Biscuit.

floridatraveler soco pork chop grits

Pork Chops Take a ride at Soco

Even the conservative Panhandle is whistle Dixie with a new beat.  The Golden Spoon winning Restaurant Iron in Pensacola grows its own herbs and vegetables and uses them across the menu.   Head Chef Alex McPhail gets national acclaim for his ancho chilli rubbed Muscovy duck and salt and vinegar crusted triggerfish roulade.

floridatraveler pensacola the iron

In case you think this New Southern cuisine is mainly an urban, yuppie thing, let me pick out one of my favorite Tampa Bay places.  In a rustic cottage on St. Joe Road outside Dade City is Pearl in the Grove.

floridatraveler pearl in the grove dade city

Don’t Expect Seeing The Colonel at this Pearl of a restaurant

It looks like a down home fried chicken spot, but it is a Golden Spoon winning restaurant that attracts diners fifty miles away.   People love her catfish meuniere, chicken liver with pecans and rice, and a pork belly roulade with Granny apples and a molasses glaze.

floridatraveler pork bellies the pearl dade city

The New Pork Bellies

Food-wise, The Old South is becoming the New South.

Posted in attractions, dining, Florida Food, florida history, florida vacations, food, Restaurants, travel | Leave a comment