That was the big question today. We have a day. Not long. There are many suggestions of Miami in a day. Hop on a bus, spend an hour here. Another bus, another hour here. Walk 10 blocks..etc
We knew a whistle stop tour trying to see everything with Max would probably result in us seeing very little and getting very stressed.
As a result, we decided to drive down to South Beach, check out the beach and the park, and stroll up Ocean Drive looking at the Art Deco building and the hotels and bars.
Firstly though, parking. What appeared to be a main parking lot was manned by a person in a dodgy hi vis vest. “$20” she said, in a typical Miami drawl. Eeerrr no thanks we will find somewhere else.
Which we did 2 bucks an hour!! Perfect. Now. Breakfast. The Big Pink diner, just off Ocean Drive. Rammed. Lines of tables full of people stuffing their face.
Obviously we tucked into waffles and French toast.
Obviously said waffles came with eggs
Obviously they came with bacon. And strawberries. Did I mention the cream?
Suzanne, Max and I gamely polished most of it off, and then headed out to the beach.
“Let’s go for a paddle?” Someone suggested. Clearly the sand eating, sand throwing fiasco of Bahia Honda State park had slipped our mind so with me guiding Max and Suzanne dragging the buggy across 50m of sand we made it to the waters edge.
20 minutes later one of was sitting in the sand, naked and throwing it all around. It was neither Suzanne or I you’ll be pleased to hear!
At least this time we had the hindsight of bringing a change of clothes. Once we were all sand free and suitably dressed we headed off to Ocean Drive
Art Deco buildings, packed bars and hotels, posh cars driving by. Miami at its finest. We would have loved to have spent a while here, but we wanted to explore a bit more car, and also drive into the city so we had an (expensive) drink and headed back to the car.
After a drive around the Art Deco district and over to Lincoln Mall, neither impressed us so we did a splash-n-dash for petrol to get us through the next 24 hours and it was off to the city.
We tracked down Hard Rock Cafe Miami, and after 30 minutes of weighing up the parking options we deemed it suitable to pay $15 and be right on top of the HRC rather than paying $11 and negotiating 3 lanes of traffic and .5 miles on foot. Well worth the $4 dollars!
Hard Rock Cafe was good, as ever. We got the T-Shirt. And gave our details for the insurance when Max fell of his chair and hit his head! He got a free teddy out of it. Meet Tumble, being looked after by Max!
It was then back home to finalise lacking for our 5.30 rise for our journey to NYC!
Snaps below, Story above!!!