When we first started planning our Japan visit, it seemed overwhelming. So many places to see, the crowds, all the names being foreign: how would we manage? As things came along, we found that it all fell into place and Japan was actually very tourist friendly and logically laid out. In retrospect, the few organized […]
Vizcaya is the former winter residence of James Deering, an affluent businessman from Chicago who played an important role in designing the villa and gardens along with a team of designers (Paul Chalfin, F. Burrall Hoffman and Diego Suarez). The construction of the villa started in 1914 and was completed two years later, followed by […]
Let’s start by saying that this area isn’t anything like the cacophony of downtown Miami amongst its continual hustle and bustle. The quiet and serene feeling of these narrow streets lined with mature banyan trees almost makes you forget the glass towers and masses of tourists rushing between beaches and cruise ports and trendy restaurants. […]
Located on the Gulf Coast in Pinellas County, Tarpon Springs has a population of only about 25,000. While the region was first settled in 1876, it was named Tarpon Springs in 1882 because of the plentitude of jumping tarpons in the bay that were spotted by the settlers. With the arrival of the railroad in […]
This lovely park is located in the Tampa Bay Area and makes for a delightful place to relax and chill out. For us this was the perfect spot to stop for lunch and stretch our legs as we made our way up the coast to Tarpon Springs from Miami.
This post should be called swimming with manatees in Crystal River, but it turned out that an unseasonably warm February in Florida made for conditions that sent the manatees on their way back to the Gulf by the time we arrived. We still got to see a few manatees in Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park […]
We finally got our chance to dive the Ancient Mariner wreck off Deerfield Beach. It was the perfect February day with lots of sunshine and flat seas. We love Florida winters, and even the 75-degree seas aren’t so bad with a 3mm suit and a hoodie 🙂 With 30-40 feet visibility and only a small […]
One of the things that drew us to Grenada was the Bianca C wreck. Being able to scuba dive on a sunken cruise ship is something you don’t get to do every day—unless you live in Grenada! In addition to wrecks, we found that there were some remarkable, healthy and colorful reefs, making for some […]
As scuba divers, we have come to enjoy the idea of dive resorts; basically hotels that cater to divers by having a local dive operator, offer special rates that include diving, and are of course located at interesting dive destinations. To date we’ve tried three of these: Compass Point, Anthony’s Key and now True Blue […]
We had an excellent guide, Mr. Edwin Frank who was a public relations officer for the Grenada Board of Tourism for many years before retiring to do his own tours. Starting with St. George’s, we got to visit the harbor area and go through many of the narrow streets learning the names, the history and […]