After a crazy, busy holiday season, I enjoy taking time in February to getaway. For a long weekend, we chose Sarasota. This town is full of fun! Whether you are into the beach, museums, bike trails, scuba diving, or food.
We stayed at the Art Ovation Hotel. When you walk in the door, you feel like you are in a gallery.
The hotel supports local artists by allowing interactive voting on the pieces, most of the art is available for purchase, and having events where the artists showcase their talent. The staff at the hotel were very kind and helpful. Knowing that Sarasota has bike trails, I brought my bike, but the hotel does have complimentary bikes and bike locks. They also have sketch pads, drawing utensils, and instruments that you can request to use. After checking in, I went and parked in the parking garage next door. The hotel validated all our tickets. There are murals everywhere! Especially in this area, because of the theatre, opera house, and art galleries.
We had seen some cute restaurants on the neighboring streets when we drove in, so we took a walk to grab some grub. After checking out a few places, El Melvin Cocina Mexicana for some margaritas and guacamole sounded perfect. They have a beautiful open patio aesthetic and 2 for 1 margarita happy hour. And they were real margaritas, not frozen pre-made ones. We got their guacamole sampler, which has regular guacamole, guacamole with pomegranate seeds, pineapple, and feta, and guacamole with crab and roasted corn. All of them were so delicious, I highly recommend it! As a Texan, I am very picky about my Mexican food, and this place nailed it.
Fueled up and ready to go, we went and got our bikes to start exploring the town. We started my journey along the waterfront. Sarasota is a very bike-friendly town. The pathways are wide enough, and there are bike lanes.
At this waterfront area is where you can find the statue of the WW2 sailor kissing the girl. The art continues with an art installation at Bayfront Park.
As we continued to bike along the waterfront, we happened upon the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. I say this because it is true you can't go wrong with checking out any town's local botanical gardens.
The Selby name is very prominent in the Sarasota area. The grounds around their house have cultivated into beautiful and luscious botanical gardens. When we visited, they had an exhibition called "Monet Goes Pop," with artists Roy Lichtenstein putting his spin on Claude Monet's famous paintings. These gardens are so beautiful and large you can easily spend a couple of hours here.
After the gardens, we biked over to Whole Foods and got some dinner for our beach picnic. Biking to Lido Key's public beach took around 25 minutes from our hotel. The views of the sunset from the bridge were stunning!
On your way to the beach, you will bike through St. Armand's Square. Sarasota is a town full of artistry. There is a circle of sculptures depicting the muses, as well as many more Greek mythological characters.
We parked our bikes at the bike racks right by the wooden walkway leading to the beach. Splendid way to spend an evening, enjoying a picnic as the sunset.
We checked out St. Armand's Square on the way back. Very touristy area, but there are lots of shops and restaurants. We got some ice cream before heading back over the bridge to our hotel to rest for the next day's adventures.
Included in our stay was a breakfast credit at the hotel, so we decided to take advantage of their delicious and Cuban-inspired menu. They had everything from colorful acai bowls to traditional dishes with pork and pan cubano.
With the hotel being in a centrally located area to several sights in Sarasota, we decided to bike to the Ringling Museum. It was about a 25-minute bike ride. There was a section where we had to cross a major road, but a nice portion of the ride was through scenic neighborhoods. The bike rack is near the main parking lot.
The Ringling Museum and property is huge!!! On the property are a total of five buildings and several gardens.
Tickets are $25.00 for adults, which it will get you in to all circus museum buildings, the art museum, and the grounds. If you want to visit the Ca' d'Zan it's an additional $10.00.
Fun fact: If you have a membership to the museum or if you have friend that has one you can get in one guest for free.
Leaving the visitor center and to your right are two buildings dedicated to the history of the circus. The first building includes videos, posters, memorabilia, costumes, and a scaled model of a traditional circus set up.
The second building houses the decorative carriages that were used as advertisements when the circus came to town. There is also part of a train, so you can see what it was like to travel with the Ringling Circus.
Strolling under the cover of banyan trees and through Mabel Ringling's rose garden, we came to the Ca' d'Zan.
The Ca' d'Zan, was the winter house of John and Mabel Ringling. The architecture was inspired by the Venetian Gothic style. While standing inside the great room looking out the stained glass windows to see a sparkling sea, you feel transported, far away from the present.
From the views of the Sarasota Bay towards the views of the great artworks residing in the Museum of Art. The art is all part of the Ringling collection, spanning from Medieval times, through the Renaissance, to even today's Contemporary collection. It is the most impressive collection I have ever seen.
They have the "Gold Room" from the home of the Astors!
Even the gardens in the center a filled with majestic statues.
Visiting the Ringling is a must! But be prepared to spend most of the day here.
I have had the pleasure to go back a visit the Ringling Museum a few times, and I am always astounded by the architecture and the art. A few of the rooms in the art museum have rotating collections, they are at the end of both the halls. The middle rooms are the permanent collection of Reubens, Italian Renaissance Art, and the French Rococo. Hoping on my next trip to view the second floor of the Ca' D'Zan, which is only available to be viewed by select tour groups on specific days and times. They do have pictures hanging of the some of the rooms upstairs in the kitchen, where you exit the 1st floor, but its not the same as seeing the room in its entirety.
After biking back to the hotel, it was time to freshen up and get changed to go visit a secret beach in Longboat Key. The beach is known to some as "Beer Can Island." It is a true locals beach.
Another sunset successfully viewed, it was time to grab some dinner. We took a lead from a local, who directed us to Shore Longboat Key. Now I knew of the store called Shore and I knew they had a restaurant in Sarasota, but it's always good to talk to the locals because they know what's good. The restaurant has limited parking because it is right on the water, but there is a complimentary valet service. The restaurant atmosphere was totally what I was looking for. Eating out on a deck with water views. The food was delicious and the drinks delectable. When we finished our meal we took a stroll on the dock. A couple of people were night fishing off of it. We also saw dolphins!
The goal for the following day was to go shark tooth diving in Venice, Florida. We both had wet suits but were advised to layer up or get a thicker one. I layered a 5mm on top of my 3mm, and he got a 5mm. We rented from Scuba Quest in Sarasota. Since the water was going to be about 60-65 degrees and we were going to be hanging out at the bottom, we wore gloves, booties, and a hood.
I will be honest, this was my first time diving with all these extra accouterments. When I started scuba diving, I was in tropical climates where you could get away with wearing just a rashguard under your BCD. I have used my 3mm wetsuit mainly in the Florida springs, but the saltwater definitely affected my buoyancy, especially with doubled wet suits. As someone who's normally very buoyant already, getting down was a big struggle on this dive. I also lost one of my fins on one of the dives, so I did the rest with only one fin...
It was a 3 tank dive, and unfortunately, we didn't find that many teeth. It is a learned skill, to know what to look for and how to dig to find teeth without kicking up too much silt. We also wished we had asked for more clarification and questions before diving down, as our guide was not able to go down with us.
This dive experience was rough but a learning experience. I look forward to going shark tooth diving again and crushing it next time. We did find a few teeth and lots of sand dollars.
Diving is a workout, and we were starving after (even though we had eaten pub subs in between dives). Again, always ask the locals because they will let you know where to go. We went over to Pop's Sunset Grill. A very popular place, because it is near boat drop-in sites and a boat storage warehouse. Very laid back and casual. Had some drinks and the Urbanek's Steamship Pot, which had shrimp, Andouille sausage, corn, potatoes, celery, carrots, and we added muscles. It was good, nothing groundbreaking, but hit the spot after a day on the water.
With an active day as we had, we wanted to have a chill evening. Our hotel was basically an art gallery so we decided to take advantage of that. Stopping at Publix to get some wine to drink for our art gallery tour. Starting at the top floor, we finally checked out the pool and bar area up top. We enjoyed the lovely night air in one of the cabanas for a bit, then began our tour. You can vote for which pieces you like and that you wish the hotel to keep for viewing. You can also purchase some of the paintings. Down in the lobby, they had a local artist painting. He was painting and jamming out to some tunes. We scooched around to get a better look at the painting in progress, then the artist turns and asks me "if I would like to help him out." So yours truly got to help paint a few strokes! Je suis une artiste feminine.
On our last day, we drove out to Myakka River State Park, one of Florida's largest and oldest state parks.
This park is known for its canopy walkway and tower. I was a little underwhelmed since this walkway gets a lot of hype. The setup felt to me like a random place on a trail. It is also much shorter than I had expected. It was still nice to do and see the forest from a different vantage point.
This park has plenty of other things to do. Tons of campgrounds and log cabins are available. You can go fishing, kayaking, boating, biking, and hiking. Go ahead and take a few hours to get lost in nature.
After working up an appetite with hiking and exploring, we had our last meal in Sarasota at the famous Walt's Fish Market. Having been around since 1918, it has been a big part of the community. You can go and get fresh seafood from the counter or eat out at their tiki bar.
I was so excited to get so much checked off my bucket list on this long weekend. And even though a lot got accomplished, it still felt like a chill vacation, and I felt so refreshed afterward. I was so pleasantly delighted to find out how much of an artistic town Sarasota is, learning its place in history, its ties to the greatest show, and its ties to the water.
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