 4/7/2021 - Marathon, Florida - Today, our journey to explore Florida began driving from Hilton to Buffalo Niagara International Airport to catch a direct flight on Frontier Airlines to our starting point Tampa, Florida. The whole flight experience was excellent. This would begin our tour of the state renting a car and heading to Nicole's place in Pinellas Park for a delicious scallop dinner. We went to our hotel on Treasure Island and found it disgusting, cancelled and stayed with Nicole instead. We started heading to St Petes Beach for some relaxation that included drinks and lunch at the Toasted Monkey. We enjoyed a nice sunset on Treasure Island Beach and an okay dinner at Buoys Waterfront Bar & Grill. The next day we hopped in the car and visited some relatives and then headed to Honeymoon Beach finishing the day with a great dinner at Fresco's Waterfront Bistro and exploring the newly developed St Petes Pier. The next day, we hopped in the car and headed southeast down Route 75 to Hollywood Beach to relax and have lunch at my namesake restaurant Florio's Of Little Italy. A very good pizza. We explored Hollywood beach a bit then headed south down Route 1 to our next stop on the tour Marathon, Florida in the Keys. We had an excellent ocean front room at Glunz Ocean Beach Hotel & Resort. Over the next few days we explored the Keys a bit taking in a nice sunset at Sunset Beach Park on Grassy Key and had drinks and a nice dinner at The Sunset Grille in Marathon. We drove all the way down Route 1 to Key West and hung out there making to the Southernmost Point of the Continental US and stopped and had drinks on Duval Street at the Original Jimmy Bufffett's Magaritaville Key West. We had to stop at Hard Rock Cafe and pickup the mandatory pin and we also stopped at iconic places like the Truman Little White House, Mallory Square and Key West Lighthouse. We headed back to Marathon and enjoyed a day relaxing at the resort, experiencing true Florida Keys life with a power outage that lasted several hours. We checked out and headed back to Tampa to catch our flight stopping in Naples to enjoy the gorgeous Lowdermilk Park with great sand and ocean views. After that back to Pinellas Park to stay with Nicole one night before catching our early flight back home. An excellent trip, we will be back.... Slideshow |
