Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
pioneers and Tampa's Cuban community and cigar industry. The cartography collection
dazzles.
Henry B Plant Museum
MUSEUM
( 813-254-1891;
www.plantmuseum.com
;
401 W Kennedy Blvd; adult/child 4-12yrs $10/5;
10am-5pm Tue-Sat, from noon Sun)
The silver minarets of Henry B Plant's 1891 Tampa Bay
Hotel glint majestically. Now part of the University of Tampa, one section re-creates the
original hotel's luxurious, gilded late-Victorian world.
Glazer Children's Museum
MUSEUM
( 813-443-3861;
www.glazermuseum.org
;
110 W Gasparilla Plaza; adult/child under 12 yr $15/
9.50; 10am-5pm Mon-Fri, to 6pm Sat, 1-6pm Sun; )
Creative play spaces for kids don't
get any better than this crayon-bright, inventive museum. Eager staff and tons of coolio
fun; adjacent Curtis Hixon Park is picnic-and-playground friendly.
MANATEES & MERMAIDS
Apparently, Florida's Spanish discoverers confused manatees with mermaids, but
it's not hard to tell them apart. Mermaids are those beautiful long-haired women
with the spangly tails swimming in the underwater theater at
Weeki Wachee
Springs
( 352-592-5656;
www.weekiwachee.com
; 6131 Commercial Way, Spring Hill; adult/child
6-12yr $13/8; 9am-5:30pm)
. Their graceful adagios and The Little Mermaidshow
(three times daily) are Florida's most delightfully kitschy entertainment (just 45
minutes north of Tampa).
Lovable, ponderous, 1000lb manatees are the ones nibbling lettuce in the crystal
bathtub of
Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park
( 352-628-5343;
www.floridastateparks.org/homosassasprings
; 4150 S Suncoast Blvd; adult/child 6-12yr $13/5;
9am-5:30pm, last entrance 4pm)
, with its own underwater observatory (20 minutes north
of Weeki Wachee).
Sadly, you can't swim with the mermaids, but you can with the manatees. Head
a few miles north to King's Bay, within the
Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge
(
352-563-2088;
www.fws.gov/crystalriver
;
1502 SE Kings Bay Dr; visitor center 8am-4pm Mon-
Fri)
, where the visitor center can guide you to nearly 40 commercial operators that,
had they existed, would have spared the Spaniards lots of heartache.
