Sights in Florida
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Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park
Two miles north on Hwy 441, wild horses and bison roam the 21,000-acre Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park. This slightly eerie preserve’s wet prairie, swamp, hammock and pine flatwoods have more than 34 trails, including the 16-mile Gainesville–Hawthorne Rail Trail, slicing through the northern section. The 3-mile La Chua Trail takes in the Alachua Sink and Alachua Lake, offering alligator- and sandhill crane–spotting opportunities. Just north of the visitor’s center, climb the 50ft observation tower for panoramas. Campsites cost $15, and include water and electricity.
reviewed
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Imaginarium Hands on Museum
- Fort Myers, USA
- Sights › Other
This excellent science museum, with over 60 exhibits, is favored by the wide-eyed kid in everyone. Don’t miss the weather-forecasting exhibit, where kids can pretend they are meteorologists and present the weather using monitors. There is also a tornado machine and exhibits on ozone depletion and weather; touching a cloud is pretty neat. A 3-D theater runs shows at 1pm and 3pm. Outside, a ‘dig pit’ lets kids look for fossils and shark teeth, while the lagoon teems with tons of freshwater fish and other Florida aquaculture. Check out the coral-reef tank, aquariums and reptile retreat.
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A
Miami Beach Post Office
If you’re going to send the family some corny postcards (of which there is no shortage), do so from this 1937 deco gem, the first South Beach renovation project tackled by preservationists in the ‘70s. This Depression moderne building in the ‘stripped classic’ style was constructed thanks to President Franklin D Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA), which supported unemployed artists during the Great Depression. On the exterior, note the bald eagle; inside, gaze at a beautifully restored painted paper ceiling and a large wall mural of the Seminole Wars.
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Charles Deering Estate
The Deering estate is sort of 'Vizcaya lite', which makes sense as it was built by Charles, brother of James Deering (of Vizcaya fame). The 150-acre grounds are awash with tropical growth, an animal-fossil pit of bones dating back 50,000 years and the prehistoric remains of Native Americans who lived here 2000 years ago. There's a free tour of the grounds included in admission, and the estate often hosts jazz evenings under the stars. Last tickets sold at 4pm.
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PAL Sailor Circus
Sarasota even celebrates its circus heritage in its school system. The PAL Sailor Circus is a truly unique circus experience – you don’t have to worry about animal or human cruelty here – its troop is comprised entirely of Sarasota County students. The kids take ‘circus’ as an extracurricular school activity, and learn high-flying, tumbling and clowning, which they then perform under the big top. It’s a wonderful experience that also supports positive after-school activities for children. Look for it tucked under the big blue-and-white circus tent east off S Tamiami Trail.
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Honeymoon Island State Recreation Area
Honeymoon Island State Recreation Area began life as a grand prize in a 1940s contest. Paramount newsreels and Life magazine were giving away all-expenses-paid honeymoons to newlyweds who’d stay in thatched huts lining the beach. A road connecting the island to the mainland was built in 1964 and the state bought the land in the early 1970s. Today, the park offers diverse birdlife, good swimming and great shelling. Coastal plants include mangrove swamps, rare virgin slash pine, strand and salt marshes. There are also nature trails and bird observation areas.
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Museum of Science & Industry
All ages can find something intriguing at this interactive science museum. Younger kids: go straight to Kids in Charge, whose wealth of hands-on activities hides science beneath unadorned play. An extreme-weather exhibit recreates the effects of hurricanes and tornadoes. However, the frank human body exhibit – with preserved fetuses and cautionary looks at pregnancy and health – is best for older kids. Don't miss the Imax movie; it's included with admission. From downtown, take I-275 north to exit 51, and go east on Fowler Ave.
reviewed
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Mar-a-Lago
- Palm Beach, USA
- Sights › Other
The most famous mansion overlooking this stretch of surf and sand is Donald Trump's predictably over-the-top Mar-a-Lago, purchased in 1985 for a measly around US$8 million and soon turned into a private country club. It's best glimpsed as you drive over the bridge from West Palm towards the ocean.
The rest of the stretch is a nonstop parade of riches, though nearly every sprawling estate is well hidden by walls and privet hedges. Still, it's kind of fun when you can catch a look at part of a big ol' house, and the views you can occasionally get of the ocean are even better.
reviewed
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Brickell Avenue Bridge & Brickell Key
Crossing the Miami River, the lovely Brickell Avenue Bridge between SE 4th St and SE 5th St was made wider and higher several years ago, which was convenient for the speedboat-driving drug runners being chased by Drug Enforcement Administration agents on the day of the bridge's grand reopening! Note the 17ft bronze statue by Cuban-born sculptor Manuel Carbonell of a Tequesta warrior and his family, which sits atop the towering Pillar of History column. Walking here is the best way to get a sense of the sculptures and will allow you to avoid one of the most confusing traffic patterns in Miami. Brickell Key looks more like a floating porcupine with glass towers for quills…
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Kampong
If you speak Malay or Indonesian, then yes, this Kampong is named for the Bahasa word for village. David Fairchild, Indiana Jones of the botanical world and founder of Fairchild Tropical Gardens, came up with the title, undoubtedly after a long Javanese jaunt. This was where the adventurer would rest in-between journeys in search of beautiful and economically viable plant life. Today it's listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the lovely grounds serve as a classroom for the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Free self-guided tours (allow at least an hour) are available by appointment, as are $20 two-hour guided tours. It's located in southwest Coconut…
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Old US Post Office
Constructed in 1912, this post office and county courthouse served as the first federal building in Miami. The building, which features a low-pitched roof, elaborate doors and carved entryways, was purchased in 1937 to serve as the country's first savings and loan (funny, considering S&Ls helped build Miami in the 1980s). Check out Denman Fink's 1940 mural Law Guides Florida Progress in the main courtroom on the 2nd floor.
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Jackie Robinson Ballpark
On an island in the Halifax River, this ballpark is home to the Daytona Cubs, a Class A minor-league affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. In 1946, the Montreal Royals, Jackie Robinson's team, was in Florida to play an exhibition against their parent club, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Other Florida cities refused to let the game proceed due to segregation laws, but Daytona Beach cried, 'Play ball!' and Robinson later went on to be the first African American baseball player in the majors. The ballpark, seating 4200 people, was renamed in his honor in 1990.
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Gusman Center for the Performing Arts
The Arsht Center is modernly pretty, but the Olympia Theater at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts is vintage-classic beautiful. You know how the kids at Hogwarts can see the sky through their dining-hall roof? Well the Olympia re-creates the whole effect sans Dumbledore, using 246 twinkling stars and clouds cast over an indigo-deep, sensual shade of a ceiling, frosted with classical Greek sculpture and Vienna Opera House–style embellishment. The theater first opened in 1925; today the lobby serves as the Downtown Miami Welcome Center, doling out helpful visitor information and organizing tours of the historic district; at night you can still catch theater and…
reviewed
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Anhinga & Gumbo Limbo Trails
Two trails, the Anhinga and Gumbo Limbo (the latter named for the Gumbo Limbo tree, also known as the 'tourist tree' because its bark peels like a sunburned Brit), take all of an hour to walk and put you face to face with a panoply of Everglades wildlife. Gators sun on the shoreline, anhinga spear their prey and wading birds stalk haughtily through the reeds.
Come at night for a ranger walk onto the boardwalk and shine a flashlight into the water to see one of the coolest sights of your life: the glittering eyes of dozens of alligators prowling the waterways.
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Studios of Key West
This nonprofit showcases about a dozen artists' studios in a gallery space located in the old Armory building, which includes a lovely sculpture garden. Besides its public visual-arts displays, TSKW hosts readings by local authors like Robert Stone, literary and visual workshops, concerts, lectures and community discussion groups. Essentially, it has become the accessible heart of this city's enormous arts movement, and offers a good point-of-entry for visitors who want to engage in Key West's creative scene but don't have a clue where to start. You may want to call ahead before you visit in case exhibits are being installed.
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Fort Lauderdale Historical Society
Discover a Florida of colonial villas and bougainvillea, rather than Mickey Mouse and Miami, at this organization, which maintains the Hoch Heritage Center, a historic research facility; the century-old New River Inn, Philemon Bryan House and King-Cromartie House, open for tours; and the 1899 Replica Schoolhouse. The museum mounts exhibits on Fort Lauderdale and Broward County history and Seminole folk art and also offers guided walking tours of historic downtown. Call for details.
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Palm Beach Maritime Museum
There's not much to this museum in pleasant Currie Park, except for war buffs who will surely get off on the display of artifacts from the sunken battleship USS Maine. The museum's main attraction is as the place to catch the ferry to Peanut Island, home of the Kennedy Bunker, where typically brilliant Cold War-era advisers decided to build the president's fallout shelter. Here you'll see JFK's decontamination shower, then you can go hiking, snorkeling or even camping on the island.
The ferry comes at 10:00, noon and 14:00 Wednesday through Sunday.
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The Promenade
This beach promenade, a wavy ribbon sandwiched between the beach and Ocean Dr, extends from 5th St to 15th St. A popular location for photo shoots, especially during crowd-free early mornings, it's also a breezy, palm-tree-lined conduit for in-line skaters, cyclists, volleyball players (there's a net at 11th St), dog walkers, yahoos, locals and tourists. The beach that it edges, called Lummus Park, sports six floridly colored lifeguard stands. There's a public bathroom at 11th St; heads up, the sinks are a popular place for homeless bathing.
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Wings Over Miami
Plane-spotters will be delighted by this Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport museum, which chronicles the history of aviation. Highlights include a propeller collection, J47 jet engine, a Soviet bomber from Smolensk and the nose section of a B-29 called Fertile Myrtle, the same type of aircraft used to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An impressive exhibit on the Tuskegee Airmen features videos of the African American pilots telling their own stories. Historic bombers and other aircraft drop in for occasional visits, so you can never be sure what you'll see.
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Ringling Museum Complex
Really, don’t miss the 66-acre winter estate of railroad, real-estate and circus baron John Ringling and his wife, Mable. This excellent museum complex, with exotic plantings and a rose garden, is easily worth at least a half-day of your holiday. Avid art collectors, over the years they amassed an exceptional collection of works by Rubens, Hals, Van Dyck and others. Ringling began work on a fine art museum in the early 1920s, which was donated to the state after his death in 1936. You can also tour Ringling’s home, Cà d’Zan, and the enormous Circus Museum.
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Historic Capitol
Next door to the current state capitol is its far more charming 1902 predecessor, adorned by candy-striped awnings and topped with a reproduction of the original glass dome, and as grand as its successor is uninviting. It now houses the Florida Legislative Research Center & Museum, including a restored House of Representatives chamber and governors' reception area, plenty of governors' portraits, and exhibits on immigration, state development and the infamous 2000 US presidential election, with displays such as the equally infamous butterfly ballot, now enclosed in glass.
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Loop Rd
A little further up you can detour down Loop Rd , which offers four interesting sites. One: gambling-enriched Miccosukee (this is still their reservation), whose houses all seem to have shiny new pick-up trucks parked out front. Two: great pull-offs for viewing flooded forests, where egrets that look like pterodactyls perch in the trees. Three: scary, isolated Florida types who make it very clear trespassers will be sorry.
And four: the short, pleasantly jungly Tree Snail Hammock Nature Trail. Be warned that the Loop is a rough, unpaved road.
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Ocean Drive
Yar, here be the belly of the South Beach beast. It's just a road, right? No, it's the great cruising strip of Miami; an endless parade of classic cars, testosterone-sweating young men, peacocklike young women, street performers, vendors, those guys who yell unintelligible crap at everyone, celebrities pretending to be tourists, tourists who want to play celebrity, beautiful people, ugly people, people people and the best ribbon of art-deco preservation on the beach. Say 'Miami.' That image in your head? Probably Ocean Drive.
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Long Key State Recreation Area
The 965-acre Long Key State Recreation Area takes up much of Long Key. It’s about 30 minutes south of Islamorada, and comprises a tropical clump of gumbo-limbo, crabwood and poisonwood trees; a picnic area fronting a long, lovely sweep of teal water; and lots of wading birds in the mangroves. Two short nature trails head through distinct plant communities. The park also has a 1.5-mile canoe trail through a saltwater tidal lagoon and rents out canoes (hour/day $5/10) and ocean-going kayaks (two/four hours $17.20/32.25).
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Gold Coast Railroad Museum
Primarily of interest to serious train buffs, this museum was set up in the 1950s by the Miami Railroad Historical Society. It displays more than 30 antique railway cars, including the Ferdinand Magellan presidential car, where President Harry Truman famously brandished a newspaper with the erroneous headline 'Dewey Defeats Truman.' On weekends the museum offers 20-minute rides on old cabooses ($6), standard gauge cabs ($12) and, for kids, on a small 'link' train ($2.50). It's advised you call ahead to make an appointment to ride. It's located about 13 miles southwest of Coral Gables near the Miami Zoo.
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