Welcome to Miami!

Miami: 1 November - 6 November

‘A sunny place for shady people’ is how our Art Deco Walking Tour guide described Miami. The city has a very interesting history, from playground for the wealthy to decline and back again to being a bustling party town. Miami was founded by Julia Tuttle in 1896 – it was the only major city to be conceived by a woman. Tuttle designed the town as a resort for the wealthy. There was nothing there before Tuttle started to dredge the waters, fill in the land making it habitable and convincing the rich and famous to build/invest in the city (including convincing rail tycoon to extend the Florida Railway to Miami). The building boom of the 1920’s saw all the ‘modern’ architecture’ of the time being built – which meant hundreds of art-deco style buildings were erected to ensure Miami was a modern city. It was the party town in the 1920’s but with the Great Depression and world wars the boom came to a halt. Miami headed for decades of decline, notoriously earning it the title of murder and drug capital of the US. Inadvertently the city started to flourish again once television show Miami Vice made the city look better than it actually was at the time. The use of art deco buildings in the show, as well as some people’s love for the architecture helped create the movement to preserve many of the Miami Beach buildings. Now Miami has become a playground once again.

We spent a week in this sunny paradise, enjoying the architecture (Astrid loves Art deco!), indulging in great food (we recommend 11^th Street diner & the Cuban Restaurant on Espanola), we went to a Miami Dolphins vs San Diego Chargers football game (we have now awoken a little Dolphins fan in Ian) and we checked out Wynwood galleries (an industrial warehouse area turned street art district). We also went on some retail therapy after wearing the same clothes for the past 6.5months J America, the land of plenty, is a great way to finish our 8 month travel break – Next up, the big American road trip.

Art Deco:

Versage pad - most photographed house in US

Dolphins Game Day:
Bad food count: Foot-long chili dog, BBQ wings, Chili cheese nachos & toms of soda

Street Art:

Mmmh Milkshake :)