SECOND DAY IN MIAMI

Slept Well ✔     Took More Long Walks ✔     Wonderful Weather  ✔         Walked More ✔      Enjoyed Our Second Full Day In Miami  ✔   Visited South Beach ✔ Enjoyed Another Nice Dinner  ✔


These boots were made for walking.  More on this in a moment.


We thought we would begin with a few more photos we took as we walked back from dinner last evening over to our Hotel.


The first two photos were taken in the area outside Mary Brickell Village which houses several stores and nearby restaurants, and outdoor areas for people to enjoy a drink, eat  or do both.  Some of the restaurants also had live music.  Since it was a Friday evening and also the second Friday before Christmas the area was quite busy.  Some people were out as part of Holiday Parties.

This is another photo taken of the Christmas Lights on Brickell.

This is one of a couple of Christmas Trees that are lit in one of the two hotel lobby areas.

Between all of the walking we did as well as catching up on sleep from our early day on Thursday morning, once again, we were able to fall asleep fairly quickly shortly after our heads hit the pillow.  


Today, is our second full day in Miami.  We enjoyed a simple breakfast in our room of cereal and a banana along with water and coffee.  Afterwards, it was time to get ready for another day in Miami.

A familiar icon in downtown Miami is Freedom Tower. It was originally built in 1925 as home to the Miami Herald and over the years changed hands several times.  The newspaper vacated the building in 1957 at which time it was used to provide medical treatment to Cuban refugees.  By 1997 the building was dedicated as a museum, library and meeting hall as part of being restored and converted to a monument in honor of the Cuban refugees.  In 2005, the developers of this property donated it to Miami Dade College.

We walked from the hotel over to a nearby Farmers Market.

We then proceeded over to the Intercontinental Hotel which is located near a tourist area called Bayside.  From the hotel we took a Taxi over to South Beach and for those of you familiar with the area we had the driver drop us off at 5th and Ocean Drive which is part of the Art Deco District.  We walked over to the beach area and then we walked by many of the art deco hotels.

The weather was delightful as it was just below 70 degrees.

We then walked several additional blocks and then determined what our destination would be.  Keith wanted to go visit the Fontainebleau Hotel but since it is located at around 44th Street and Collins, Anne Marie was not sure whether we could make it all the way since we had started at 5th.  We agreed to just walk and see where our legs took us.  We walked on the boardwalk which turned to be a most pleasant walk with the beach East of us and mainly hotels and condominiums towards the West.

This is what we mainly walked on and about half way to our destination we realized this was very doable.

We made it to the Hotel.  The reason why Keith wanted to walk there is that he stayed there with his family when he was around five years young and thought it would be nice to visit.  We still have several photos from Keith's family vacation.  Since that time the hotel has been completed renovated with new building added and the interior of the existing rooms totally redone.  

One of the many pools at the hotel and a view of the beach and Atlantic Ocean.

After taking a short rest at the hotel we walked on the boardwalk and then stopped off at the Ritz Carlton South Beach location as we wanted to visit the Hotel.  We had an interesting conversation with the Concierge.  She was saying that this week has been lighter on visitors although they are 80% full.    We also feel that there are less tourists here this week than when we were here right after Christmas late last year.  She did note that they are finding that the traditional Florida Season is no longer the only time they are very busy as she mentioned that during the summer months many tourists come to Miami from places such as The United Kingdom.  During this time of the year many tourists visiting Miami come from places such as South America. This is now a very popular spot with Brazilians.  As we walk the streets it is very apparent to us that many of the people on the streets visiting her are from many countries outside of the USA.


We walked a little bit more and then we took a Taxi back to the Intercontinental. From the hotel we walked towards our Hotel and made one stop at the Grocery Store to bring lunch back to our room.


The weather was nice.  It was sunny for a portion of our walk, a little cloudy and then we had a few raindrops.


We enjoyed lunch back in our room and then we went out a couple of hours later.


Before dinner, we decided to once again walk over to Claughton Island also known as Brickell Key.  From the island we could see that five ships were in port including two Carnival, two Celebrity and one NCL cruise ship.  This photo shows the Celebrity Eclipse which is one of their newer generation (Soltice) ships.

After our walk, we went to dinner.  Now, where do you think we went to dinner?  If you guess Perricone's you are right and you can give yourselves a pat on the back.  We promise you that we are not having dinner there tomorrow. You'll have to wait for tomorrows blog to learn where we will dine.


We each started with a house salad and then we each had a Sea Bass Entree. We enjoyed both of these items.  We then walked back to the room.

We enjoyed another wonderful day in Miami and look forward to tomorrow.


TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.......

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” – Albert Einstein

Keith and Anne Marie