Florida Road Trip

Miami Beach

South Beach

Florida is dubbed the Sunshine State. Sunshine and beaches go together. According to the State of Florida website, there are 663 miles of beaches in the state. That translates to a choice of beaches! So here we were at the Marriott Stanton sitting prettily after a long walk on the powdery sands of South Beach.

We were famished after an interminable drive from Orlando though we had stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Palm Beach. I ordered the chicken tacos and I was quite happy with the mix of fillings, not too spicy, just the way I like it. The salads were fresh and the sliders were quickly cleaned off the plate. I highly recommend sitting on the terrace at The Stanton. It's at 161 Ocean Drive.

Driving on Miami's main drag, Collins Avenue, is so distracting with all the tempting shop windows and the iconic Art Deco buildings. In contrast, the drive on Ocean Drive along the coast is more calm and scenic. We found lots of parking spaces (perhaps because it was a weekday), incentive enough to test the sand and exercise our cramped legs after sitting in the car for hours.

Ybor City, Tampa

We discovered Ybor City on our way out of Tampa. We couldn't do much sightseeing as it was pouring heavily. But it cleared up as we approached Ybor City, a once prosperous suburb from the 1890s when the tobacco industry was flourishing and employed immigrants from Cuba, Spain and Italy. Fortunes changed after the Great Depression and Ybor was left to languish. A renaissance of the neighborhood began in the 1980s when artists set up their studios and food and entertainment businesses followed suit. Traces of the good old days are still evident today, especially on 7th Avenue, its main street. Ybor City is a National Historical Landmark District.

Columbia Restaurant

The Columbia Restaurant is the oldest restaurant in Florida and the largest Spanish restaurant in the world. It was opened by Cuban immigrants in 1905 and continues to be operated to this day by the same family. The Columbia has expanded to six other locations in Florida. Their adress is 2117 E 7th Avenue in Ybor. There is a Spanish flamenco dance show 6 days a week at this location.

For reservations check here: columbiarestaurant.com.

Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral

The Atlantis

A trip to Florida wouldn't be complete without a visit to the amazing Kennedy Space Center. Most of us have only seen the launching of rockets on television. To see these spacecrafts in person and to learn about the process leading up to their launching add to a deep appreciation of the NASA space program and of the people who made them happen. I was frankly awed by it all especially while watching the Apollo 11 landing on the moon and hearing the astronaut, Neil Armstrong, say these now famous words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here…the Eagle has landed.” I had goosebumps!

The Atlantis space shuttle was first launched in October 1985. It completed 33 missions including the "on orbit" launch of the spacecrafts, Magellan and Galileo, and 7 missions to the Russian space station, among others. It's last mission was in July 2011.

There's a steep entrance fee to the Kennedy Space Center but the total experience is worth it. Arrive early to see all the exhibits, film footage of the lunar landing, 3D documentary films about space exploration and our planet and the bus trip to the launching pad. Exciting possibility of seeing some alligators along the way. Follow this link for more information:

http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/?utm_source=GoogleMaps&utm_medium=Local&utm_campaign=visitorcomplex

*This article is a late post. (Better late than never.) We were in Florida in May 2016.

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Images by TravelswihCharie

Filipino Struggles in History - Carlos Botong Francisco

In 1968, Antonio Villegas (then Mayor of Manila), commissioned Carlos "Botong" Francisco to paint the history of Manila for Manila City Hall. The series of large scale paintings was called Kasaysayan ng Maynila (History of Manila). The paintings deteriorated over time and no attempt was made to preserve these historical canvases until 2013 when Mayor Amado Lim sent them to the National Museum for extensive restoration. Four years later, in 2017, Mayor Joseph Ejercito Estrada and the Manila City Council signed an agreement with the National Museum to leave the paintings at the museum so they may reach a larger audience in exchange for museum grade reproductions to replace the originals. Kasaysayan ng Maynila was later renamed Filipino Struggles in History and is now on display at the Senate Hall of the National Museum . Carlos "Botong" Francisco died in March 1969, a few months after completing the paintings. He is one of the first Filipino modernists and

The Art of Carlos Botong Francisco - Progress of Medicine in the Philippines

Pre-colonial period Pag-unlad ng Panggagamot sa Pilipinas (The Progress of Medicine in the Philippines) is a group of four large-scale paintings depicting healing practices in the Philippines from pre-colonial times to the modern period. Carlos Botong Francisco was commissioned in 1953 by Dr. Agerico Sison who was then the director of Philippine General Hospital (PGH) together with Dr. Eduardo Quisumbing of the National Museum, Dr. Florentino Herrera, Jr. and Dr. Constantino Manahan. These oil on canvas paintings measure 2.92 meters in height and 2.76 meters in width (9.71 ft x 8.92 ft) and were displayed at the main entrance hall of PGH for over five decades. Owing to its location, the artworks were in a state of "severe deterioration" at the beginning of the 21st century from exposure to heat, humidity, dirt, dust, smoke, insect stains, grime, termites and an oxidized synthetic resin used in an earlier restoration. These canvases were restored three times, the last was

8 Heritage Houses of Iloilo

Lizares Mansion The province of Iloilo on the island of Panay has a rich trove of heritage houses, left over from the sugar industry boom in the 19th century. Iloilo also had the largest port in the Philippines at that time which facilitated the export of sugar to foreign shores and deposited money in the hands of the sugar barons. The barons dropped their earnings into the acquisition of properties in Negros and the construction of beautiful homes in Iloilo, many of which are located in the vicinity of the Jaro Cathedral. The Lizares Mansion was built in 1937 by Don Emiliano Lizares for his wife, Concepcion Gamboa and five children. The family fled to safety when World War II broke out and the house was occupied by the Japanese military. The family returned to the house after the war but left once again after the demise of Don Emiliano. It was sold to the Dominican order in the 1960s and was converted in 1978 to a private school, Angelicum School. The mansion now houses the

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