Sarasota

Sunday afternoon we decided to take a ride down to Sarasota. It was my first time going there. On the way down we made a brief stop at the Prime Outlets. Didn't find a single bargain. I bought a glass container to store leftover coffee in the refrig.

Our first stop in Sarasota was St Armands Circle where there are tons of shops and restaurants. It's nice that there are no meters and parking is free. We walked around for a while and then had lunch at Hemingway's. For some reason, Hemingway's was decorated for Christmas. Go figure. We ate out on the porch; was very comfortable with the breeze and the ceiling fans. We could see some dark clouds north of us and saw a couple of lightning bolts and heard some thunder, but luckily, we had sunshine all day!

I ordered the Char-Grilled Chicken, Sliced Pear & Brie Ciabatta ("set atop a bed of arugala with carmelized Vidalia onions, plum tomato and stone ground musta-maise.") Wayne ordered the Cuban Pork Panini ("Hot pressed pit ham and roast pork with melted swiss, dill pickles and chipotle mustard.") Then we swithed one half of each. Both were delicious!

Afterwards we walked to Lido Beach. The water looked beautiful!

Coconut palms . . . I thought I was in Hawaii for a minute!

This was on the way into downtown Sarasota.

The building on the left was an old Kress 5 and 10 cent store.

This was the library . . . interesting architecture!

We walked around a lot and guess where we ended up? A place called "Jolly" for gelato!

After the gelato, it was back over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge back to St Pete.