Experience More

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Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science

M1 1101 Biscayne Blvd College/Bayside # 9:30am–6pm daily frostscience.org

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t The impressive three-level aquarium at the Frost Museum of Science

The aim of this striking museum, in the bayfront area called Museum Park, is to help visitors explore the power of science. It has interactive exhibits on the human body and engineering, as well as a planetarium and an expansive aquarium.

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Miami-Dade Cultural Plaza

M1 101 West Flagler St q Government Center # 10am–5pm Mon–Wed, Fri & Sat; noon–5pm Sun historymiami.org

Designed by the celebrated American architect Philip Johnson in 1982, the Miami-Dade Cultural Plaza houses a splendid history museum and a library, which contains four million books.

HistoryMiami concentrates on pre-1945 Miami. There are informative displays on the Spanish colonization and Seminole culture among other topics, but it is the old photographs that really bring Miami’s history to life. These photographs explore the hardships endured by the early pioneers as well as the fun and games of the Roaring Twenties.

Port of Miami Boat Trips

“Estates of the Rich and Famous” boat tours provide a leisurely view of Biscayne Bay between Downtown and Miami Beach. Tours begin by sailing past the world’s busiest cruise port, situated on Dodge and Lummus islands. Near the eastern end of MacArthur Causeway, they pass unbridged Fisher Island, a highly exclusive residential enclave, with homes rarely costing less than $500,000. The tour continues north around man-made Star, Palm, and Hibiscus islands. Mansions in every possible architectural style lurk beneath the tropical foliage, among them the former homes of Frank Sinatra and Al Capone, as well as the abodes of celebrities such as Matt Damon and Julio Iglesias.

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Brickell Avenue

M2 q Brickell, Government Center Various stations n 701 Brickell Ave, Suite 2700; www.miamiandbeaches.com

In the early 20th century, the building of palatial mansions along Brickell Avenue earned it the name Millionaires’ Row. Today, its northern section is Miami’s palm-lined version of New York’s Wall Street – its international banks enclosed in modern, glass blocks. South of the bend at Southwest 15th Road is a series of startling apartment houses glimpsed in the opening credits of TV series Miami Vice. Designed in the early 1980s by an iconoclastic firm of Postmodernist architects called Arquitectonica, the buildings – now condos – are still very impressive.

The most memorable is the Atlantis (at No. 2025), for its “skycourt” – a hole high up in its facade containing a palm tree and Jacuzzi. The punched-out hole reappears as an identically sized cube in the grounds below. Arquitectonica also designed the Palace, at No. 1541, and the Imperial, at No. 1627. Described as “architecture for 55 mph” (that is, best seen when passing in a car), these exclusive residences and high-rise office buildings were designed to be admired from a distance.

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Bayside Marketplace

M1 401 Biscayne Blvd College/Bayside # 10am–10pm Mon–Sat (to 11pm Fri & Sat), 11am–9pm Sun baysidemarketplace.com

By far the most popular spot Downtown among tourists (and the best place to park in the area), Bayside Marketplace is an undeniably fun complex. It curves around Miamarina, where a plethora of boats lie docked. Some are private, but others can be booked for trips around the stunning Biscayne Bay.With its numerous bars and restaurants, Bayside is a good place to eat as well as to shop. The food court on the first floor is fine for a fast-food meal. Bands often play on the waterfront esplanade.

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Pérez Art Museum Miami

M1 1075 Biscayne Blvd College/Bayside # 10am–6pm Fri–Tue (to 9pm Thu) pamm.org

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t Visitors relaxing on the steps at the back of the Pérez Art Museum Miami

Named after its benefactor, real-estate developer Jorge Pérez, the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) houses a collection of 20th- and 21st-century international art. Its stylish galleries feature exhibits of contemporary works in a variety of mediums, including photography and sculpture. Set in lush gardens, the museum occupies an impressive building designed by Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron.

Did You Know?

The Pérez Art Museum Miami hosts regular film screenings and concerts.

EXPERIENCE Downtown and Coral Gables

Drink

Cubaocho Museum & Performing Arts Center

A colorful bar with live music, this place also hosts a community center that celebrates Cuban culture through various exhibitions and events. It also provides a venue for retirees to meet, smoke cigars, and play dominoes.

K2 1465 SW 8th St cubaocho.com


E11EVEN MIAMI

This is part cabaret and part nightclub, with trapeze dancers, a roof-top lounge, and a restaurant. Not a cheap evening, but this venue is fast becoming a Florida institution.

M1 29 NE 11th St # 24 hours daily 11miami.com

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Venetian Pool

G3 2701 De Soto Blvd q Douglas Rd, Vizcaya # Times vary, check website coralgables.com

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t The crystal-clear waters of the beautiful, palm-fringed Venetian Pool

Arguably the most beautiful swimming pool in the world, the Venetian Pool was fashioned from a coral rock quarry in 1923 by the artist Denman Fink and the architect Phineas Paist. Decorative elements – including pink stucco towers and loggias, candy-cane Venetian poles, a cobble-stone bridge, caves, and waterfalls – surround the clear, spring-fed waters. The pool was originally one of the most fashionable social spots in Coral Gables: see the photographs in the lobby of beauty pageants staged here during the 1920s.

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Miracle Mile

H3 Coral Way between Douglas and Le Jeune roads q Douglas Rd, Vizcaya shopcoralgables.com

In 1940, a developer hyped Coral Gables’ main shopping street by naming it Miracle Mile. Colorful canopies adorn shops as prim and proper as their clientele. High prices and competition from out-of-town malls ensure that the street is rarely busy.

The Colonnade Building, at No. 169, was built in 1926 by George Merrick as the sales headquarters for his real-estate business. Its superb rotunda is now a lobby for the deceptively modern and very impressive Colonnade Hotel. Caffe Abbracci offers Italian food and celebrity-viewing opportunities. Nearby, at Salzedo Street and Aragon Avenue, the Old Police and Fire Station Building, built in 1939, houses the Coral Gables Museum.

Experience Downtown and Coral Gables

George Merrick’s Dream City

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With the help of Denman Fink as artistic advisor, Frank Button as landscaper, and Phineas Paist as architectural director, George Merrick conjured up a city that he planned as an aesthetic wonderland. The dream spawned the biggest real-estate venture of the 1920s. The 1926 hurricane and the Wall Street crash left Merrick’s Coral Gables incomplete, but what remains is a great testament to his imagination.

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Coral Gables City Hall

H3 405 Biltmore Way q Douglas Rd # 8am–5pm Mon–Fri coralgables.com

Constructed in 1928, Coral Gables City Hall epitomizes the Spanish Renaissance style favored by George Merrick and his colleagues. Its semicircular facade even has a Spanish-style coat of arms, which was designed for the new city of Coral Gables by Denman Fink, George Merrick’s uncle. Fink was also responsible for the mural of the four seasons that decorates the dome of the bell tower. Above the stairs, a mural that illustrates Coral Gables’ early days, Landmarks of the Twenties, was the work of the artist John St. John in the 1950s; he artificially aged it by chain-smoking and exhaling onto the paint as it dried.

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Coral Gables Merrick House

G3 907 Coral Way # 1–4pm Wed & Sun coralgables.com/coral-gables-merrick-house

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t The Coral Gables Merrick House, former home of the illustrious George Merrick

When Reverend Solomon Merrick brought his family to Florida from New England in 1899, they settled in a wooden cabin south of the growing city of Miami. They later added a much larger extension and named the house Coral Gables, thinking the local oolitic limestone used to build it was coral because of the fossilized marine life it contained. The city of Coral Gables took its name from this house.

The house has now been turned into a museum, with the emphasis firmly on the family – particularly Solomon’s famous son, George. Some of the furniture on display was owned by the Merricks, and there are family portraits and paintings by George’s mother and his uncle. The grounds have been reduced in size, but the small garden is awash with tropical trees and plants. Guided tours of the house are compulsory and take place at 1, 2 and 3pm.

Seeing the family home gives visitors a chance to appreciate the comparatively modest background of Coral Gables’ ambitious and imaginative creator.

EXPERIENCE Downtown and Coral Gables

Stay

The Mutiny Hotel

This hotel is famous as the Mafia headquarters that inspired the 1983 version of Scarface. Its poolside restaurant, Table 14, is worth a visit on its own for its modern take on classic Latin American dishes.

J4 2951 S Bayshore Dr mutinyhotel.com

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Mayfair Hotel & Spa

Behind its distinctly odd exterior, the Mayfair offers private balconies, marble bathrooms and Japanese soaking tubs in most rooms. This is luxury on a budget. There’s also a heated outdoor pool with cabanas on the roof.

J4 3000 Florida Ave mayfairhotelandspa.com

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Biltmore Hotel

G3 1200 Anastasia Ave q Douglas Rd biltmorehotel.com

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t The palm tree lined monumental facade of the historic Biltmore Hotel

Coral Gables’ outstanding single building was completed in 1926. In its heyday, when it hosted celebrities such as Al Capone (who had a speakeasy here), Judy Garland, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, guests were punted along canals in gondolas. The Biltmore served as a military hospital during World War II, when its marble floors were covered in linoleum, and it remained a veterans’ hospital until 1968. The hotel went bankrupt in 1990, but then opened its doors again two years later.

A 315-ft (96-m) near replica of Seville Cathedral’s Giralda tower, which was also the model for Miami’s Freedom Tower, rises from the hotel’s imposing facade. Inside, Herculean pillars line the grand lobby, while from the terrace behind you can survey one of the largest hotel swimming pools in the US. The Biltmore’s famous swimming instructor Johnny Weismuller, known for his role as Tarzan in the films of the 1930s and 1940s, set a world record here.

Sunday tours of the hotel depart from the desk.

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t The airy, vaulted lobby

Fact Meets Fiction

In the 1980s, the public perception of Miami was as the drug and crime capital of the entire country. Ironically, the popular TV series Miami Vice played on this reputation, glamorizing both the city and the violence. The best novels about Miami in the 1990s have also emanated from its seedier side. Its two most renowned crime writers are Edna Buchanan, winner of a Pulitzer prize for news reporting at the Miami Herald, and Carl Hiaasen, a columnist for the same newspaper. However fanciful his plots might seem (building inspectors practicing voodoo, or talk-show hosts having plastic surgery on the air), Carl Hiaasen claims the ideas come straight from the Herald’s news pages. Striptease was the first of his novels to be made into a movie.

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Coconut Grove Village

J4 q Coconut Grove, Douglas Rd coconutgrovevc.org

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t Shops and alfresco cafés at the CocoWalk mall, in Coconut Grove Village

A fabled hippy hangout in the 1960s, these days the focal point of Coconut Grove cultivates a more salubrious air. Well-groomed young couples wining and dining beneath beautiful old-fashioned street lamps now typify what is often known simply as “the village.” Only the odd snake charmer and neck masseur, plus a few New Age shops, offer glimpses of alternative lifestyles. It is worth visiting at night or on the weekend to see the lively Grove at its best.

The village’s nerve center is at the intersection of Grand Avenue, McFarlane Avenue, and Main Highway, where visitors will find the lively CocoWalk. This outdoor mall is one of the most popular destinations here. Its courtyard is full of brilliant cafes and souvenir stands, while on upper floors a band often plays. There are also family restaurants, a movie theater, and a nightclub. It is undergoing renovations until 2020, but many shops and cafes are still open.

A short distance east along Grand Avenue, a stylish shopping area called Mayfair in the Grove is worth visiting as much for its striking ensemble of Spanish tiles, waterfalls, and foliage, as for its shops. But in order to better appreciate Coconut Grove’s relaxed cafe lifestyle, head along the sidestreets of Commodore Plaza and Fuller Street.

For a different atmosphere, browse the food stands of the colorful Farmers’ Market, held on Saturdays at McDonald Street and Grand Avenue. This area is also the center of Miami’s Bahamian-American community, the largest of any city in the US. The neighborhood comes alive during Coconut Grove’s exuberant Goombay Festival every July.

A five-minute stroll south along Main Highway will pass through a shady, affluent neighborhood where palms, bougainvillea, and hibiscus conceal elegant clapboard villas. At 3400 Devon Road stands the picturesque Plymouth Congregational Church, which looks as though it was built much longer ago than 1916. It is usually locked, but the ivy-covered facade and setting are the main attraction.

Did You Know?

The Biltmore Hotel is said to be haunted, due to a gangster murder and its time as a military hospital.

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Lowe Art Museum

G5 1301 Stanford Dr q University # 10am–4pm Tue–Sat, noon–4pm Sun lowemuseum.org

Located in the middle of the campus of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, this museum was founded in 1950 thanks to a donation from philanthropists Joe and Emily Lowe. More than 19,000 objects are in the museum’s collection, which showcases many of the world’s most important artistic traditions. Visitors will find impressive Renaissance and Baroque works, in addition to an excellent series of American Indian art. There is also an Egyptian collection, some fine works in the 17th-century and contemporary European and American collections, Afro-Cuban lore, 20th-century photography and historical memorabilia. Ancient art from Latin America and Asia is also well represented.

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tSculpture in Lowe Art Museum’s Ancient Americas collection

EXPERIENCE Downtown and Coral Gables

Eat

Palme D’Or

The Biltmore’s Michelin-starred restaurant overlooks the hotel’s famous swimming pool.

G3 1200 Anastasia Ave biltmorehotel.com

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Ortanique on the Mile

Chef and owner Cindy Hutson offers shoppers on the Miracle Mile a local take on Caribbean fare.

H3 278 Miracle Mile ortaniquerestaurants.com

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Cibo Wine Bar

Upscale but cozy restaurant offering genuine Italian food and complimentary limoncello shots.

H3 45 Miracle Mile cibowinebar.com

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The Barnacle

J4 3485 Main Hwy, Coconut Grove # 9am–5pm Wed–Mon floridastateparks.org

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t The Barnacle, built in the late 19th century and the oldest home in Dade County

Hidden from Main Highway by tropical hardwood trees, The Barnacle is the oldest home in Dade County. It was designed and occupied by Ralph Munroe, a Renaissance man who made his living from boat building and wrecking. A botanist and photographer, Munroe was also an avid environmentalist with a strong belief in self-sufficiency.

The house is named for the little crustacean because of the conical shape of its roof. In 1891, when it was first constructed, the house was a bungalow, built of wood salvaged from wrecks and laid out to allow air to circulate (essential in those pre-air-conditioning times). Then, in 1908, Munroe raised the building and added a new ground floor to accommodate his growing family. Inside the two-story house visitors can explore rooms filled with old family heirlooms and wonderful, dated practical appliances, such as an early refrigerator. The hour-long tours of the property also take in Munroe’s clapboard boathouse, full of his tools and workbenches. Alongside, you can see the rail track that Munroe used to winch boats out of the bay, plus replicas of two of his sailboats.

The Barnacle is also a good birdwatching site, its tropical forest providing shelter for woodpeckers and nightjars, as well as kingfishers, pelicans, and cormorants.

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Coral Gables Museum

H3 285 Aragon Ave q Douglas Rd # Noon–6pm Tue–Fri, 11am–5pm Sat, noon–5pm Sun coralgablesmuseum.org

Housed primarily in the Old Police and Fire Station building, this local museum offers a wide variety of exhibitions about Coral Gables and the surrounding area. Along with the main building, the museum complex includes beautiful outdoor spaces and the Fewell Gallery. Permanent exhibits at the complex include a show of large-format images by photographer Clyde Butcher which focus on the natural beauty of the Tamiami Trail, while a separate exhibition of the history of the trail that does not shy away from describing its devastating impact on the Everglades.

Coral Gables’ founder, and developer, George Merrick, is the focus of another exhibition, showing how he was inspired to build a place where “your castles in Spain are made real.” The museum is also the City of Coral Gables official visitor center and a great starting point for a wide variety of tours.

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Dinner Key

J4 3400 Pan American Dr q Coconut Grove

The name is thought to derive from the early days when settlers had picnics here. In the 1930s, Pan American Airways transformed the area of Dinner Key into the busiest seaplane base in the US. It was also the point of departure for Amelia Earhart’s doomed round-the-world flight in 1937. Visitors can still see the airline’s sleek Streamline Moderne-style terminal which houses Miami City Hall – the hangars where seaplanes were once harbored are now boatyards where visitors can join a boat tour along Miami’s coastline. To see how some people enjoy their leisure time, walk among the luxurious yachts moored in Miami’s most prestigious marina.

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Insider Tip

Coconut Grove Arts Festival

In mid-February, hundreds of artists showcase their work at the three-day Coconut Grove Arts Festival (www.cgaf.com), which also offers food events and music.

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Ermita de la Caridad

L3 3609 S Miami Ave § (305) 854-2404 q Vizcaya # Noon–8pm daily

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t The conical church of Ermita de la Caridad

This conical church, erected in 1966, is a very holy place for Miami’s Cuban residents – a shrine to their patron saint, the Virgin of Charity. A mural above the altar (which faces Cuba rather than being oriented eastward), illustrates the history of the Catholic church in Cuba, showing the Virgin and her shrine on the island. The church is hard to find: take the first turn north of the Mercy Hospital.

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t A mural by Teok Carrasco above the altar

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