West Central Florida
Move onto the Gulf Coast of Florida, and you get to some of the state’s best tourist hotspots. Full of cosmopolitan cities, great beaches and excellent eateries, the West Coast is the choice of the discerning buyer in Florida.
Big-city St. Petersburg boasts a waterfront downtown scene that pulses with energy. Centre of attention, The Pier takes the futuristic shape of an upside down pyramid with a glass elevator to transport you from its ground-level fishermen’s catwalks, boutiques and food court up to restaurants, a marine aquarium attraction, and a five-story view of Tampa Bay.
At the approach to The Pier sit two of St. Petersburg’s superlative museums: the St. Petersburg Museum of History and Museum of Fine Arts. Other fascinating museums include the Salvador Dali Museum, Florida International Museum, Florida Holocaust Museum and Heritage Village.
Clearwater Beach is the famous white-sanded beach that offers miles of crystal blue seas and wonderful facilities for sun worshippers.
More than just a big city with all the sophistication, culture, industry and services that implies, Tampa is also a place for family vacations and encounters of the natural kind. Situated on Florida’s largest inlet, Tampa Bay, which separates it from sister city St. Petersburg, Tampa has a lot of shipping history in its past, and in its present. With its strategic position, it began as a Seminole War fort. Later its quick access to the Gulf of Mexico and deep port brought cigar-making and Spanish-American War preparations to town.
Inner city, attractions old and new beckon. Railroad builder Henry Plant’s fantastical Tampa Hotel now holds university offices and the Henry B. Plant Museum, furnished for the 1890s. The Tampa Theatre is another elaborate historic specimen, standing in contrast to an ultra-modern performing arts hall and art museum. Bayshore Boulevard winds between the waterfront and its stately homes, known as the world’s longest unbroken sidewalk and site of the swashbuckling Gasparilla Pirate Festival in February. In historic neighbourhoods such as Hyde Park, shopping and dining opportunities excel.
