The Keys and more

I will try to keep these recaps as brief as possible!

After our flight to Miami and the longest immigration queues I have ever seen, we drove through some crazy storms to Key West.

We got to watch the sun set over the water,

while musicians played in the streets.

We visited the home of Ernest Hemingway, and a turtle hospital.

After a few days we drove up to Miami (stopping at the 7 mile bridge)- it was super hot!

We got to spot all the sights from one of my fave TV shows, Burn Notice (which is actually filmed in Miami, unlike Dexter which moved).

So many pretty buildings. I think if they were in the UK they would look tired and dated, but the bright colours and funky architecture works with the blue skies and laid back feel.

We are not ones for sunbathing so we walked up and down the beach. Within 30 mins of this photo it was chucking it down with rain- we were on the edge of a tropical storm.

Then after a few days in Miami (2 nights) we drove up to Orlando. First up we stayed near to Seaworld, and spent some days shopping, going to Seaworld (and Discovery Cove).

The dolphins at Seaworld have an underwater viewing thing which was very relaxing.

It was a super hot day so I was always trying to find the shade!

Good plan to visit the penguins- it is always icy cold in there!

Veggie food options at seaworld are still terrible- the only thing I found was a veggie wrap (literally, a wrap with carrots, lettuce and red cabbage, no spread, no hummus, nowt) which Andy and I shared for lunch, and also some massive chunks of pineapple 🙂

We also watched the Shamu show (Shamu is their name for the killer whales). I have been there before and sometimes the whales would not come out and so the show changed a lot. The trainers used to get in the water with them too, but I think someone was killed, so now they do not go in the water at all. But really seeing these impressive animals leap out of the water is the best bit, and there was a baby that was copying the older whales which was cute to see. It seemed less choreographed than before, which is probably a lot better for the animals.

Then we went to stay in a Disney hotel and had a few days there.

They always do amazing fireworks shows.

We also went to EPCOT (my fave park)- and Hollywood studios which was MGM but got re-named.It was hot (yet again, I was after the shade while Andy took a million photos).

Then it was farewell to Orlando and off to St Augustine.

We stayed in an amazing B&B, called AT Journeys End. The Innkeeper, Tim, cooked the breakfast for us and the other guests each morning, and as I had put I was vegetarian he had planned the meals around me. How amazing.

St Augustine has some beautiful buildings, and a lot of history to it. This was built as a hotel.

It also has a castle/ fort, and so we looked around that and even watched people fire a cannon into the water.

Look how fab it is, right by the water.

It was hot, so yet again I was finding some shade! I bought a bottle of water from the shop there and when the lady gave me my change she said “thank you for staying hydrated”. I love that!

More of the castle.

And some of the pretty old town area- lots of chocolate shops, ice cream shops, t-shirt shops but such pretty buildings.

This is Flagler college, and is another hotel. And I just noticed me in the picture haha! We did a guided tour of that too.

It was time to cool down, cue lunch in a cafe with a smoothie (and an umbrella!). Andy said I wasn’t smiling enough in this picture, so cue a rather “special” one next.

I think it is the lighting haha!

Then we drove to Savannah

Which was just beautiful, full of tree lined streets and squares.

And more

(Mercer House from the famous “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”. Which was not how I pictured it at all)

A beautiful fountain

A stunning church which was also totally amazing on the inside- stained glass windows etc

Leopolds Ice cream (because we all need ice cream to go alongside culture)

An impressive town hall

And a massive bridge

After that we went to Charleston, but we have not sorted out the photos from that yet. These pics were on Andy’s old camera, but he also got himself a new one (fancy SLR one- shouldn’t it be me, the blogger, who has one of those?) which has about 1500 photos (yeah, Andy takes a lot of photos) and we have not sorted them yet, surprisingly.  So they might emerge at some point.

So have you been to any of the places I visited? What is your favourite place to go on holiday to? And what photos do you like- people or places? We mainly go for the places (as you can see, out of all the photos I think there are maybe 10 with me in them!) but my parents always take photos of them, and also of random people like their waitress and stuff!

PS next post will hopefully be the foodie post 🙂