Sunday 6 January 2019

Clearwater, Fort Myers, Sanibel Island, Everglades City


So trying to catch up now I'm going through a few places in this post :)
On the 26th we left New Orleans and headed towards Clearwater, Florida. Google said 10 hours but it took 12 because of the people returning from Christmas Vacation and such, we did it in 2 days and arrived at the 27th in Clearwater.


Here there is a Salvador Dali Museum, even though not a big place the museum was packed. The parking lot was completely full even though it was 10$ just to park. But the collection was full of pieces I had never seen (they were in private collections).



The building was cool too.




Lots of his early work, from when he was at art school and had not found his style yet.





If you squint your eyes you'll see Abraham Lincoln instead of a naked Gaia, Dali's wife.






Some paintings were huge.




And yes, it was crowded, but it was not crowded in an annoying way, and I was happy to see some very interested teenagers, gives hope for the future of art :)




Somewhere in that ball, you'll see me.



There was also a Magritte and Dali Exhibition.





Both of their work is of course Surrealism at its best.



Fun fact: the museum's cafe served Spanish food and drinks, which was fun for Mum :)


After also some thrifting :) we left Clearwater the 29th and headed to Fort Myers.


Some of the roads are pretty crazy, this is a bridge and it looked like we were driving towards the sky.



The reason of Forth Myers was Sanibel Island, a pretty well-known island. Prices of hotels on the Island were astronomic so we stayed in Fort Myers which ended up to be a great choice.


It is so weird to get to islands around here you just drive, no boats, lots of bridges through the ocean, and most roads are super straight so sometimes you don't even notice that you are crossing water.


Sanibel Island is famous due to the number of shells. But we went at the wrong hour and there were beach goers so there were no special shells, still, it was pretty but not in a way we expected.



The gulls were catching shrimps.




Finding parking was close to impossible on the Island, either it was forbidden or the spaces were owned by business owners.


The lighthouse was unlike any I've seen before.



After that, we headed to Everglades City the 31st. The name sounded so magical, but the town was the most boring place we've ever been.


It consisted of 1 street, super straight, hardly a shop and most people used golf carts instead of cars as it was so small :D


There was a 'museum' close by which was the convenience store and post office back in the days. Electricity came only in 1955 around there!



90% of the stuff was originally from the shop and they tried to keep its look to show how it used to be.



It was a cute visit.





We went to shore and saw some Pelicans.







There were more birds than people in that town. At 8:10 there was some fireworks that ended before 9, after that not a single sound, which was actually a blessing. At 12:05 we went to bed, the first day of the year everyone was up early, no party animal in this town :) Even the road out of there was so boring and super straight, we did not go all the way deep in the Everglades Park as it was all kind of the same, we just did not want to miss it as who knows opportunity will occur again.
Next post will be about the Keys!

5 comments:

  1. It's so cool. Thank you for sharing photos.

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  2. That Dali museum looks really cool!
    Quite like the quaint "old shop" museum too :D

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  3. Great travelogue post again! It's fun to follow your adventures in South US, Star :) I didn't know that so many interesting Dali pieces were in private collections...

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  4. Did you drive Route 44? It's called the Alligator Highway, and when I drove it there were LOTS of alligators!
    I love the Everglades, but admit that it's not a scenery with a lot of big visuals. It's very subtle and mesmerizing to stand on a boardwalk and realize that most of the area around you is a moving, flowing body of shallow water... The Sea of Grass. But you have to leave the cars and walk inwards on the boardwalks.

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    1. No, we didn't see a single alligator in Florida, but it is winter and they hibernate.

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