Until the 1950s, Orlando was not much more than a sleepy provincial town. Its proximity to Cape Canaveral and the theme parks, however, helped to change all that. Downtown Orlando beckons mostly at night, when tourists and locals flock to the bars and restaurants around Orange Avenue. During the daytime, take a stroll in the park around Lake Eola, to get a taste of Orlando’s (comparatively) early history.
t The bright lights of downtown Orlando, set around Lake Eola
Experience Orlando and the Space Coast
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The Harry P. Leu Gardens, which were donated by Leu and his wife to the City of Orlando in 1961, offer 50 acres (20 ha) of serenely beautiful gardens. Features such as Florida’s largest rose garden are formal and pristine, while elsewhere nature has been allowed a freer rein, and you can find mature woods of spectacular live oaks and cypresses, festooned with Spanish moss. In winter, seek out the stunning camellias.
This art center located in the leafy suburb of Maitland, north of downtown Orlando, occupies studios and living quarters that were designed in the 1930s by artist André Smith as a winter retreat for fellow creatives. Set around gardens and courtyards, the buildings are lovely, with abundant use made of Mayan and Aztec motifs. The studios are still used, and there are exhibitions of contemporary American arts and crafts.
t The curved, sand-colored exterior of the Orlando Science Center
This center aims to provide a stimulating environment for experiential science learning through its huge range of state-of-the-art, interactive exhibits. Covering 207,000 sq ft (19,200 sq m) of floor space, these include the Dr. Phillips CineDome, a movie theater that doubles as a planetarium. Exhibits change frequently, but the DinoDigs area, with its collection of dinosaur fossils, is perenially popular with kids, as is the orange packing plant, where youngsters eagerly pick and pack plastic oranges.
The original museum was opened in 1960 at Loch Haven Park and was called the Central Florida Museum, before being renamed in 1984. The present building, six times larger than its previous home, opened in February 1997.
EXPERIENCE Orlando and the Space Coast
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STAY Grand Bohemian Hotel Orlando Downtown Orlando’s most luxurious hotel offers guests elegant amenities along the lines of a piano lounge and a spa. Also on-site is the hotel’s own contemporary art gallery. ⌂ 325 S Orange Ave ∑ kesslercollection.com/bohemian-orlando \ |
Loch Haven Park, 2 miles (3 km) north of downtown, is home to a trio of small museums. The most highly regarded is the Orlando Museum of Art, which has three permanent collections: pre-Columbian artifacts, with figurines from Nazca in Peru; African art; and American paintings of the 19th and 20th centuries. Loch Haven Park is also home to the Orlando Shakespeare Theater, which hosts the city’s Fringe Festival in spring.
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Orlando Museum of Art
# 10am–4pm Tue–Fri, noon–4pm Sat & Sun ∑ omart.org
Housed in the 1927 courthouse downtown, the Center crams 12,000 years of Central Florida’s past into three floors. Don’t miss the diorama of the sink-hole that swallowed buildings and cars in Winter Park in the 1980s.