Tag: Florida

Key Largo: First stop on a Florida road trip

What image comes immediately to mind for you when someone says “Key Largo”? Do you think of Bogie and Bacall in the eponymous 1948 film noir?

…or perhaps you’re more inclined toward the laid-back, beach-bum image created by the 1981 Bertie Higgins song?

Either way, Key Largo is something different. And it was our first stop in this winter’s Florida road trip.

We flew into Fort Lauderdale, rented a car and drove the almost two-hour drive toward the Florida Keys. The truth is that the drive is unbelievably boring and the traffic going into the Keys? Brutal. But at least Key Largo is at the top of the keys.

We pulled into the Key Largo Beach Marriott Hotel and got our bearings. Let’s start with location.

Great Florida vibe in the hotel lobby

Key Largo is less a “town” than it is a very long, four-lane highway running down the middle of a sandbar where, in places, there are a few streets between the road and the water on either side. Thus, if you’re trying to find a “downtown” hotel, close to everything, you’re out of luck. The Key Largo Bay Marriott Beach Resort, however, is walking distance to a number of bars and restaurants in addition to what’s on the property.

This is what runs down the Keys from one end to the other. Art is heading south.

One of the nearby bars is The Caribbean Club that bills itself as the filming location for Key Largo the movie back in the late ‘40s. Subsequent research, however, suggests that the movie was almost entirely filmed on the Warner lot with only the opening scenes filmed on location in Florida. We’d have to go back and watch the move again to see if this bar really figures in. If it doesn’t, it probably should.

We took a walk north from our hotel one evening and were lured into two spots by the music wafting through the air waves along with the rustling palm trees. At the first one, the band was just finishing a set, so we moved on and stumbled into The Caribbean Club. Filled with a wide variety of laid-back, T-shirt-clad music lovers, we took a seat at the bar and ordered two beers. Strictly cash only. No credit cards.

We sat back and enjoyed the band and our beers and when the set was finished, we moved on. The life-sized statue of Humphrey Bogart at the door was more Rick from Casablanca in his white dinner jacket, but no matter. Atmospheric it was!

The three days in Key Largo were laid-back and rum-filled. There is no reason whatsoever for anyone in Key Largo to wear anything other than a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. Since we don’t do downtime as well as many people do, one day we decided to drive to Key West.

Views from our hotel veranda

We’d been there twice before each for one day off a cruise ship and decided that we need to see the Keys in their entirety. Well, when people at the hotel heard we drove there and back in one day, they thought we were crazy. It took two-and-a-half hours to make it down the narrow highway to the end of the Keys and over three hours to drive back. Hideous traffic all the way.

Key West (images above of Papa Hemingway, his house and the southernmost-point-in-the-US marker after Hurricane Dorian) was mobbed by cruise ship travelers. We found a place to park, had lunch then headed back to Key Largo to mellow out a bit.

After three days of chilling it was time to get back in the car and head across the Everglades to our next stop: Naples, Florida.

Cruising to Chile: Live Blog #1 (Key West)

Ernest Hemingway loved the place… the conch republic as they call it. Of course today we’re in Key West. And it’s only month post hurricane Irma. The local residents have done a heroic job of clean-up. There’s some evidence of damage, but the hurricane has clearly not dampened the laid-back ambiance that is so characteristic of Key West.

We took ourselves on a walking tour to the southernmost point in the US then down Duval Street for a bit of hat shopping.

Buying a new sun hat at “Hot Hats” on Duval Street with proprietor, Terry Lipsky.

The rain started in earnest, pounding down to the point of mini flooding. It’s not hard to imagine what it must have been like in a hurricane.

We’re truly enjoying the Silver Muse…she’s a beautiful ship and our suite is lovely. Tomorrow we’ll be at sea and on our way to Costa Rica.

The Architectural Travel Experience: Art Deco in Miami Beach

art deco drawingLater on this month here in Toronto we’ll spend a wonderful spring weekend touring architectural gems in this city. For the past seventeen years our city has been celebrating its edifices with Doors Open Toronto. This is an extraordinary opportunity for locals and tourists alike to see inside the walls of buildings that are not normally open to the public, or that they usually just walk by obliviously. This year there are 130 open, and we will be visiting the Bloor Street United church (because we never go inside churches in Canada except for weddings and funerals), Billy Bishop Airport on Toronto Island (because we always fly out of Pearson International), the Campbell House Museum, Osgoode Hall, and the Arts and Letters Club or Toronto (because we walk by them all the time and have wondered about it), the Canadian Music Centre to name a couple. These buildings tell a city story, just like the stories told by the architecture in places we visit around the world.

For example, Barcelona (one of our very favourite cities in the whole world) provides one of the richest architectural travel experiences that should be on everyone’s travel bucket list in our view. How can you visit a city like Barcelona without marvelling at at least a few of famed architect Gaudi’s extraordinarily creative edifices? And who can visit Chicago without experiencing it Chicago School architectural marvels, or Paris without the Louvre? Or Miami Beach without the Art Deco?

So we did spend a week in Miami Beach this year enjoying the architecture which transports you (if you let it) back in time into the 1920’s, 30’s and early 40’s to a style the exuded glamour and pleasure. And where could the hedonistic aesthetic be more pronounced than in a place like Miami Beach? So as we did our walking tour of Miami Beach architecture, we imagined what it might have been life to stay on the beach in those art deco styled hotels in the 1930’s.

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The Blue Moon Hotel where we stayed in Miami Beach fit right into the Art Deco aesthetic.

 

The art deco district is located in the South Beach neighbourhood that has also been referred to as the American Riviera. (If you’ll pardon us, we believe that there is only one Riviera and it is in the south of France – there is no Mayan Riviera either!)

This area of Miami Beach is purported to contain the largest collection of 1920’s and 1930’s architecture in the world. There is no doubt about it that these low-rise buildings evoke a sense of history – a time when life was simpler and pleasure ruled the daily activities (as it still does today in this touristy area!).

We began our own walking tour at the Art Deco Welcome Center located at 10th Street and Ocean Drive where in the gift shop we bought a map guide to the important buildings. This is invaluable since it provides not only the location of the buildings but some of their history as well. Knowing each building’s exact provenance adds an important dimension to the enjoyment of the tour.

The art deco aesthetic is one that we particularly enjoy with its porthole windows, glass block and shiny surfaces, stepped roof lines, zig-zags, chevrons, sunbursts – these elements are what makes the buildings different than what is generally designed these days. And it tells a Miami Beach story – one you shouldn’t miss!