Orlando: St. Pete joins Salvador Dalí museum and beach – 08/03/2023 – Tourism

The sirens of the tractors and the cranes that turn the horizon into a construction site as far as the eye can see, demonstrate that St. Petersburg is Florida’s bet, the region of the United States most visited by Brazilians, to attract tourists who want to go beyond theme parks.

Better known by its abbreviation, St. Pete was voted Americans’ favorite beach in 2020. You don’t need to consult TripAdivsor, the portal where the vote took place, to find out. The predominance of local tourism invades the ears and eyes, either through the retroflex “R” that marks the American accent, or through the orange tone of their bodies, taken by artificial tanning.

But St. Pete also wants to attract foreigners. Not for nothing. The city is 170 kilometers — or 90 minutes — from Orlando, which makes it an ideal destination for those who already know Cinderella’s and Harry Potter’s castles well and want beautiful beaches to rest from wandering in parks and outlets.

Although it is a medium-sized city, with 250,000 inhabitants, the area where tourists are concentrated, known as Downtown St. Pete, has no more than 20,000 residents, most in their 50s. It is not, therefore, the ideal beach for those looking for fun, like Miami, but it is a good bet for families with children or for anyone looking for tranquility.

Opened three years ago, the pier, the city’s main attraction, has its top floor occupied by a bar, Pier Teaki. In contrast to the restaurant, cafeteria and ice cream parlor on the lower floors, there is even an improvised dance floor with a DJ at dusk, but the real charm of the place is sitting down to have a drink with a view of the Gulf of Mexico .

I could. Known as the City of the Sun, St. Pete has already recorded 768 consecutive sunny days, a superlative mark from the late 1960s that still appears in the Guinness Book of Records.

The sun makes the beaches, which combine crystalline, warm water with fine, white sand, the main attraction of the destination — not just St. Pete, but also neighboring towns located no more than 30 kilometers away.

A good tour of the region cannot leave out, therefore, a visit to Clearwater, also once considered the favorite beach of Americans, and Dunedin, a city of Scottish influence that is the oldest in the county.

It is also worth visiting Pass-a-Grille, perhaps the best beach in the region to watch the sunset, and Tarpon Springs, of Greek origin, which is known as the world capital of sea sponges, where you can take a fun boat ride for diving, fishing or even collecting sponges.

The sunny landscape takes on contours as enchanting as when seen on a walk or guided tours, the latter for those who are less afraid of converting the real to the dollar. In St. Pete, a good bet is the electric bicycle tour, the eBikes, which cover the entire tourist center in three hours at an average price of US$ 200, equivalent to about R$ 1,045, per person.

To rest after a walk, you can’t help but be enchanted by the charming picnics made to measure on the lawn at Vinoy Park, located opposite the beachfront. Packages range from US$300 for a duo to US$500 for a foursome—there are even luxurious versions, for occasions like a marriage proposal, for US$800.

While the natural landscape is its main draw, St. Pete also has a cult side. The city, which has served as the backdrop for hundreds of movies from “Winter the Dolphin” to “Magic Mike,” has an arts district with dozens of “Instagrammable” graffiti murals, more than 50 galleries and two museums —the by Dale Chihuly, an American artist who makes glass sculptures that seem to have come from Alice’s Wonderland, and Salvador Dalí.

Created from the collection of a family of wealthy collectors in Florida, the Dalí Museum has works such as “Spider of the Night” and “Geopolitical Child Observing the Birth of the New Man”, the first canvases that the surrealist made after going into exile in the United States United States during World War II, as well as “The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory”, a reinterpretation of what is perhaps one of his most famous works.

With the dollar above R$5, St. Pete is not, like any American city, one of the cheapest destinations to vacation. However, for those who are already willing to break their piggy bank on a visit to the land of Mickey, a trip to the coast will undoubtedly be enchanting.

The journalist traveled at the invitation of Visit Florida