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More about our Florida trip
Our hotel, the Westin at Key Largo, was fine, although a bit
past its best in places and the restaurants were expensive. The
hotel's beach is the only white sand beach on this stretch of coast, and
Key Largo has little to offer as a destination otherwise, except for the
John Pennecamp State Park. But it is a good centre for visiting the whole of
the Keys and southern Florida.
| Key Largo was only named as such in 1948 following
the Bogart / Bacall / Robinson film that made it famous. And although
it may have been planned and supposedly set there it wasn't actually made there - it was made in the
studio in Hollywood, at Warner's insistence, to keep the costs down.
The town was previously Rock Harbour and the south-western of the town still
uses that name. In 1951 the Director John Huston
was back with Bogart and Katharine Hepburn to make 'African Queen' in what was
then the Belgian Congo but we found what was said to be the original boat
'African Queen' from the film outside 'Bogie's Bar' at a nearby hotel in Key
Largo. The plaque with the boat says the film was made there but we
think this is not true! However the boat certainly looks authentic
and is of the age - it's apparently still used sometimes for tourist trips.
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The Everglades is a huge national park protected by law and
run very well for visitors, who do not overwhelm the place. We had an
interesting time in some of the wet areas where wildlife was concentrated (this
being the dry season), with alligators, big birds (storks, pelicans, cormorants,
egrets and the rare anhingas), and small lakes bursting with fish and lots
of turtles. There is saw-grass for miles inland, mangroves at the coast and
"hammocks" (small clumps) of tropical hardwood forest dotted about.
The John Pennecamp State Park is much smaller and is mostly
about coast protection - we took a ride out to a recovering coral reef in a
huge, fast, glass-bottomed boat, and saw lots of flying fish leaping out of the way of the
speeding boat. (Too fast and too small to photograph, unfortunately, but
it was amazing how far they flew - 50 to 100 feet, low and flat a foot or so
above the water)
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Most of the places in the
Florida Keys are just names of sections of ribbon development along one long
straight road (US1), including Key Largo, but Key West is something
different. A real town/community with splendid art-deco buildings and
consistently the best weather in the US.
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There was some embarrassment (and amusement) while we were at Key West when a
Cuban gunboat sailed into Key West harbour and the crew asked for asylum. The
USA
had just stepped up it's terrorist threat security level to "Orange"
(second highest) but the local US Navy and Coastguard allowed an armed foreign boat
to sail right in! Last we heard Cuba were asking for their boat back!
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We didn't see much of Miami itself, apart from the area around the Airport, but
we went out to Miami Beach and up to Fort Lauderdale. Both are big,
brash, fairly up-market resort cities with huge cruise liners, pretty good
beaches and lots of hotels and clubs etc. Parking is at a premium and the
roads are not easy. An unusually cloudy day (for this trip) and very windy,
hence the empty beach, but still very warm.
One thing about Miami though - don't fly
in there - the queues at immigration are horrendous! It took us over three
hours. It would almost be quicker to fly into say Orlando and drive from there. |
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