Welcome to your guide to travel to Miami Beach Florida! The beach is always beautiful and the water is always clear in Miami. Let this guide bring the beauty and peacefulness of Miami to your home with breathtaking shots of the Miami oceanfront at its finest. After you've seen what Miami has to offer, how about experiencing the beauty first-hand? Use our guide to plan the perfect Miami vacation today!
COCONUT GROVE
has come a long way since the 1960s, when it was peopled by down-at-heel artists and writers: these days, it rivals South Beach in trendiness, with a glittering cluster of art galleries, fashionable cafés and restaurants, and towering bay-view apartments.
There's more to "the Grove," - on Biscayne Bay about four miles southwest of downtown - than people-watching, however. A century ago, a strange mix of Bahamian salvagers and New England intellectuals laid the foundations of a fiercely individual community, separated from the fledgling city of Miami by a dense wedge of tropical foliage. In 1914, farm machinery mogul James Deering blew $15 million on re-creating a sixteenth-century Italian villa within this jungle. A thousand-strong workforce completed his Villa Vizcaya , 3251 S Miami Ave (daily 9.30am-4.30pm; $10), in just two years. Deering's madly eclectic art collection, and his concept that the villa should appear to have been inhabited for four hundred years, result in a thunderous clash of Baroque, Renaissance, Rococo and Neoclassical fixtures and fittings; the fabulous landscaped gardens , with their fountains and sculptures, are just as excessive. Frequent guided tours (45min) leave from the entrance loggia and provide solid background, after which you're free to explore at leisure.
Blatant statements of wealth predominate as you approach central Coconut Grove. The marina on Dinner Key sports lines of million-dollar yachts, and the neighboring Coconut Grove Exhibition Center is usually consumed by top-of-the-range trade shows. It was at the Dinner Key Auditorium (a forerunner of the Exhibition Center) in 1969 that Jim Morrison , singer with the Doors, dropped his leather trousers during the band's first - and last - Florida show, bringing the band more infamy than they knew what to do with.
About two miles south along the coast, the 83-acre Fairchild Tropical Garden , at 10901 Old Cutler Rd (daily 9.30am-4.30pm; guided tours hourly 10am-4pm; $8), is the largest tropical botanical garden in the continental US. The entire range of tropical environments has been reproduced, and there's a good section on native south Florida areas. ^top
CORAL GABLES
All of Miami's constituent cities are fast to assert their individuality, but none has a better case than CORAL GABLES , southwest of Little Havana. Twelve square miles of broad boulevards, leafy side streets and Spanish and Italian architecture form a cultured setting for a cultured community. Coral Gables' creator was a local aesthete, George Merrick , who raided street names from a Spanish dictionary to plan the plazas, fountains and carefully aged stucco-fronted buildings. Following the first land sale in 1921, $150 million poured in, which Merrick channeled into one of the biggest advertising campaigns ever known. However, Coral Gables took shape just as the Florida property boom ended. Merrick was wiped out, and died as Miami's postmaster in 1942. Coral Gables never lost its good looks, though, and remains an impressive place to explore. Merrick wanted people to know they'd arrived somewhere special, and eight grand entrances were planned on the main approach roads (though only four were completed). Three of these stand along the western end of Calle Ocho as you arrive from Little Havana.
The best way into Coral Gables is along SW 22nd Street, known as the Miracle Mile . Dominated by department stores, travel agents, and a staggering number of bridal shops, it gets more and more expensive and exclusive as you proceed west. Note the arcades and balconies, and the spirals and peaks of the Colonnade Building , nos. 133-169, completed in 1926 to accommodate George Merrick's office. Further west, along Coral Way, the Merrick House , no. 907 (Sun & Wed 1-4pm; $5), was George's boyhood home. In 1899, when he was twelve, his family arrived here from New England to run a 160-acre farm, which was so successful that the house quickly grew from a wooden shack into an elegant dwelling of coral rock and gabled windows (thus inspiring the name of the future city).
While his property-developing contemporaries left ugly scars across the city after digging up the local limestone, Merrick had the foresight to turn his biggest quarry into a sumptuous swimming pool. The Venetian Pool , 2701 De Soto Blvd, opened in 1924, is today an essential stop on a steamy Miami afternoon. Its pastel stucco walls hide a delightful spring-fed lagoon, with vine-covered loggias, fountains, waterfalls, coral caves and plenty of room to swim. The café isn't bad, either (call for hours; April-Oct $8.50, Nov-March $5.50).
Wrapping its broad wings around the southern end of De Soto Boulevard, Merrick's crowning achievement was the fabulous Biltmore Hotel , 1200 Anastasia Ave. With a 26-story tower visible across much of low-lying Miami, everything about the Biltmore was over-the-top: 25ft fresco-coated walls, vaulted ceilings, immense fireplaces, custom-loomed rugs, and a massive swimming pool hosting shows by such bathing belles and beaux as Esther Williams and Johnny Weissmuller. Today, it costs upward of $200 a night to stay here, but a fascinating free tour leaves from the lobby every Sunday (1.30pm, 2.30pm & 3.30pm) A short way south at 130 Stanford Ave is the University of Miami , site of the Lowe Art Museum (Tues-Wed, Fri-Sat 10am-5pm, Thurs noon-7pm, Sun 12-5pm; $5), whose diverse permanent collection ranges from European Old Masters to Native American artifacts and Guatemalan textiles. ^top
DOWNTOWN MIAMI
More like Buenos Aires than Boston, it's perhaps DOWNTOWN MIAMI that shows the city at its most Latin. Downtown divides into distinct halves: big business and big buildings line Brickell Avenue south of the Miami River, while the commercial bazaar around Flagler Street to the north hums with jewelers, fabric stores and cheap electronics outlets. Latin culture is comfortably dominant here - from office workers grabbing a midmorning cafecito , or Cuban coffee, from tiny streetside cafés to the bilingual signage in almost every store. If at first it may seem overwhelming, persevere: downtown is compact, holds two of Miami's best museums and provides the clearest idea of Cuba's continuing influence on the city.
Flagler Street is downtown's loudest, brightest, busiest strip; at its western end is the Metro-Dade Cultural Center , an ambitious attempt by architect Philip Johnson to create a postmodern Mediterranean-style piazza. Art shows, historical collections and a library frame the courtyard, but Johnson overlooked the power of the south Florida sun: rather than pausing to rest and gossip, most people scamper across the open space toward the nearest shade. The center's Historical Museum of Southern Florida at 1010 W Flagler (Mon-Wed, Fri & Sat 10am-5pm, Thurs 10am-9pm, Sun noon-5pm; $5, $6 combination ticket with Center for Fine Arts) provides a comprehensive peek into the region's history. It has a strong section on refugees and immigration since 1960. A few yards away, the Miami Art Museum of Miami-Dade County houses a strong collection of post-1940 art, and showcases outstanding international traveling exhibits (Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, third Thurs each month 10am-9pm, Sat & Sun noon-5pm; $5, $6 combination ticket with Historical Museum.
Beside Biscayne Boulevard (part of Hwy-1), on the eastern edge of downtown, is the Bayside Marketplace , a large pink shopping mall enlivened by street entertainers and food stands. Across Biscayne Boulevard, the Freedom Tower , built in 1925 and modeled on a Spanish bell tower, earned its name by housing the Cuban Refugee Center in the 1960s. Between December 1965 and June 1972, ten planes a week brought over 250,000 Cubans allowed to leave the island by Fidel Castro. While US propaganda hailed them as "freedom fighters," most of the arrivals were simply seeking the fruits of capitalism, and, as Castro astutely recognized, any that were seriously committed to overthrowing his regime would be far less troublesome outside Cuba.
Fifteen minutes' walk from Flagler Street, the Miami River marks the southern limit of downtown. Around 1900, the millionaire oil baron Henry Flagler extended his railroad, which had opened up Florida's east coast, to reach Miami from Palm Beach. His Royal Palm Hotel (on the site of today's Hotel Inter-Continental ) did much to put Miami on the map. One of the landowners was William Brickell, who ran a trading post on the south side of the river, an area now dominated by Brickell Avenue - the address in 1910s Miami. While the original grand homes have largely disappeared, money is still the avenue's most obvious asset: its half-mile parade of bank buildings is the largest grouping of international banks in the US. The rise of the banks was matched by new condominiums of breathtaking proportions (and expense) but little architectural merit. ^top
KEY BISCAYNE
A compact, immaculately manicured community, KEY BISCAYNE , five miles off mainland Miami, is a great place to live - if you can afford it. The moneyed of Miami fill the island's upmarket homes; Richard Nixon had a presidential winter house here. The only way onto Key Biscayne is along the four-mile Rickenbacker Causeway ($1 toll), a continuation of SW 26th Road just south of downtown, which soars high above Biscayne Bay, giving a gasp-inducing view of the Brickell Avenue skyline.
Crandon Park Beach , a mile along Crandon Boulevard (the continuation of the main road from the causeway), is one of the finest landscaped beaches in the city, with crystal-clear waters, barbecue grills and sports facilities (daily 8am-dusk; $4 per car; tel 305/361-7385). Three miles of yellow-brown beach fringe the park, and give access to a sand bar enabling knee-depth wading far from shore.
Crandon Boulevard terminates at the entrance to the Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Recreation Area , four hundred wooded acres covering the southern extremity of Key Biscayne (daily 8am-dusk; $3.25 per car; tel 305/361-5811). Hurricane Andrew took a devastating toll on the area in 1992, but most of the destroyed trees are beginning to grow back thanks to aggressive replanting, and the trails and boardwalks have been repaired. An excellent swimming beach lines the Atlantic-facing side of the park, and a boardwalk cuts around the wind-bitten sand dunes toward the 1820s Cape Florida lighthouse . Only with the ranger-led tour can you climb through the 95ft structure - attacked by Seminoles in 1836 and incapacitated by Confederate soldiers aiming to disrupt Union shipping during the Civil War.
The impact on Miami of Cubans , unquestionably the largest and most visible ethnic group in the city, has been incalculable. Unlike most Hispanic immigrants to the US, who trade one form of poverty for another, Miami's first Cubans had already tasted the good life when they arrived during the late Fifties and were soon enjoying more of the same here. Some now wield considerable clout in the running of the city.
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LITTLE HAVANA The initial home of the Miami Cubans was a few miles west of downtown in what became LITTLE HAVANA , whose streets, if the tourist brochures are to be believed, are filled by old men playing dominoes while puffing on fat, fragrant cigars, and exotic restaurants whose walls vibrate to the pulsating rhythms of the homeland. Naturally, the reality is quite different. Little Havana's parks, memorials, shops and food stands all reflect the Cuban experience but the streets are quieter than those of downtown Miami (except during the Little Havana Festival in early March). Many successful Cuban-Americans have moved to Coral Gables or elsewhere in the city, to be replaced by immigrants from elsewhere in Central America, especially Nicaragua. By all means make a beeline here for lunch at one of the many small restaurants on SW 8th Street, or Calle Ocho (its main drag), but don't expect monuments and museums - Little Havana's a neighborhood geared toward those who live and work, rather than visit, there.
There is, however, a cluster of memorials between 12th and 13th avenues along Calle Ocho that underscores the Cuban-American experience in Miami. Here, the simple stone Brigade 2506 Memorial remembers those who died at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, during the abortive invasion of Cuba by US-trained Cuban exiles. Veterans of the landing, aging men dressed in combat fatigues, gather here for each anniversary and make all-night-long pledges of patriotism. ^top
MIAMI BEACH
A long slender arm of land between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, three miles off mainland Miami, MIAMI BEACH was an ailing fruit farm in the 1910s when its Quaker owner, John Collins, formed an unlikely partnership with a flashy entrepreneur, Carl Fisher. With Fisher's money, Biscayne Bay was dredged. The muck raised from its murky bed provided the landfill to transform this wildly vegetated barrier island into a carefully sculptured landscape of palm trees, hotels and tennis courts. After a hurricane in 1926 devastated the city and especially the beach, damaged buildings were replaced by grander structures in the new Art Deco style and Miami Beach as we know it appeared. Since then, its history has been checkered: by the 1980s, crack dens and retirement homes were equally commonplace in South Beach, but the 1990s saw a renaissance spearheaded by a few savvy hoteliers and Miami's gay community.
One of the groups that remained in Miami Beach through it all was its sizable Jewish population, including many Holocaust survivors and their families. The Holocaust Memorial at 1933 Meridian Ave (daily 9am-9pm; free; tel 305/538-1663), at Dade Boulevard and Meridian Avenue opposite the visitor center, is a complex, uncompromising monument to their experience. From a distance, the impression is of a giant, defiant hand punching into the sky; as you approach, however, you make out the mass of wailing people scrabbling up the wrist. Following the wall of names, inscribed with a relentless list of Holocaust victims, brings you to the foot of the sculpture, hidden from the road, where distressing statues portray more writhing, emaciated human figures. The whole, brutal, ensemble is underscored by the accompanying quote from Anne Frank: "Ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered."
A few blocks northeast is the prestigious Bass Museum , in a lovely Art Deco building at 2121 Park Ave. The museum has been undergoing major renovations, overseen by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, and its reopening has been put back several times: at time of writing, it was scheduled for early 2002. The museum's permanent collection consists of fine, if largely unremarkable, European paintings, although its temporary exhibitions are often lively and worth visiting. ^top
