Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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Vizcaya Museum & Gardens
HISTORIC BUILDING
dent & senior $18/6/10;
h
9:30am-4:30pm Wed-Mon;
p
)
They call Miami the Magic City, and if it is, this Italian villa, the housing equivalent of a
Fabergé egg, is its most fairy-tale residence. In 1916 industrialist James Deering started a
long and storied Miami tradition by making a ton of money and building ridiculously gran-
diose digs. He employed 1000 people (then 10% of the local population) for four years to
fulfill his desire for a home that looked centuries old. He was so obsessed with creating an
atmosphere of old money that he had the house stuffed with 15th- to 19th-century fur-
niture, tapestries, paintings and decorative arts; had a monogram fashioned for himself;
and even had paintings of fake ancestors commissioned. The 30-acre grounds are full of
splendid gardens and Florentine gazebos, and both the house and gardens are used for the
display of rotating contemporary-art exhibitions.
Barnacle Historic State Park
PARK
house tours $3;
h
park 9am-4pm Fri-Mon, house tours 10am, 11:30am, 1pm, 2:30pm Fri-Mon;
c
)
In the center of the village is the 1891, 5-acre pioneer residence of Ralph Monroe, Miami's
first honorable snowbird. The house is open for guided tours, and the park it's located on is
a lovely, shady oasis for strolling. Barnacle hosts frequent (and lovely) moonlight concerts,
from jazz to classical. A little way down Main Hwy, on the other side of the road, there's a
small Buddhist temple shaded by large groves of banyan trees.
Miami Museum of Science & Planetarium
MUSEUM
senior $15/11;
h
10am-6pm;
pc
)
The Miami Museum of Science is a dedicated if small institution with exhibits ranging
from weather phenomena to creepy crawlies, coral reefs and vital-microbe displays. The
planetarium hosts space lessons and telescope-viewing sessions, as well as old-school laser
shows with trippy flashes set to the music of the Beatles and Pink Floyd. A new facility is
being built next to the
Pérez Art Museum Miami
in downtown's Museum Park.
