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Explore Florida's Gulf Islands Florida's Gulf Islands of Anna Maria Island, Longboat Key and the mainland areas of Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch possess a divine natural beauty that extends from its sandy shoreline to its charming town centres. While enjoying the quiet island life, you’ll also discover that this unique part of Florida is rich in art, culture and history.
Sarasota/Bradenton
Cá d'Zan John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art Sarasota CVB
Circus-town heritage contrasts with cultural sophistication in a destination where beach and environmental consciousness add still more breadth to what Sarasota offers. Circus master John Ringling was among the first to discover these offerings in the early 1900s, and his impact on the town has many faces. Where his circus once wintered, Ringling erected an Italian palace named Cà d’Zan, or House of John. Visitors can visit this elaborate Gilded Age mansion on the bay, part of the Ringling Estates, which also includes an art museum specialising in the baroque, a circus museum, gardens and a state-of-the-art theatre. The annual Medieval Fair graces the lovely grounds each year as one of the state’s oldest and grandest of such festivals.
Downtown Sarasota thrives in the afterglow of Ringling’s love for things artistic. The Theatre and Arts District encompasses theatres from experimental to opera. Art galleries are rife, particularly along Main Street and Palm Avenue, and trendy restaurants give the town a reputation for fine and innovative dining. Historic and artistic pockets of antique stores, galleries and cafés crop up at Herald Square and Southside districts. Towles Court Artist Colony revitalised a bungalow neighbourhood with sprightly paint jobs, galleries, studios, eateries and other artistic outlets. Circus Sarasota keeps alive the Big Top tradition and the high schools even teach circus skills and stage annual circus events.
Art takes to the street along downtown’s bay front, home to a charter fleet, park, big name luxury resorts, the striking Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall and a nearby hands-on museum.
Famed shopping centre St. Armands Circle on Lido Key remembers the circus with plaques naming its stars. Spinning off its roundabout park, some of Sarasota’s finest clothing, home decorating and book stores radiate, interspersed with ice cream and chocolate shops, delis and pavement restaurants.
The beach lies steps away, part of a broken chain of sand that spreads north and south. At the north end of Lido Key, Mote Aquarium conducts important research on sharks, manatees, sea turtles and their crucial habitat. Tour the facility,
Siesta Key Dick Dickinson
where you can watch sharks and manatees in huge aquariums, pet sting-less stingrays, or take a nature encounter cruise.
Across the pass to the north, Longboat Key stretches past golf and tennis resorts, restaurants with a reputation, shops and lovely manicured gardens fronting affluent homes. Anna Maria Island is next in line and it contains three separate communities. Bradenton Beach, a classic beach town, has taken steps to preserve its history and character in recent years. Holmes Beach is newer and mostly residential with small boutique resorts, a beachfront bed and breakfast, and rave-review dining. Historic Anna Maria clings tightly to its hidden beach persona, revealed in old beach cottages and easy-going seafood houses.
Anna Maria Island is part of Bradenton, the city across the Intracoastal Waterway that begins where Sarasota ends. Across the bridge from Bradenton Beach, time-frozen Cortez safeguards its fishing village way of life with a developing maritime museum and waterfront seafood houses. Fishing and eco-tourism excursions depart from the docks along with commercial boats.
Downtown Bradenton boasts Village of the Arts, where artists live, work and sell. Around Main Street, it resurrects a district once dependent on the Manatee River. Visit the sophisticated South Florida Museum and its manatee mascot of many years. Have lunch on the river and peruse the antique shops. Across the river, Palmetto, once strictly a tomato farming and fishing town, is becoming a tourist destination with marina activity, museums, parks and restaurants worth the trip.
South of Sarasota, two bridges lead you to the world-famous soft, white sands of Siesta Key, where lodging is as colourful and individual as the local population. So stay a while to shop and dine as casually or fine as you wish. Exclusive Casey Key to the south leads to Nokomis Beach, known for its fishing, particularly at North Jetty Park.
The South Jetty lies across the pass in Venice, shark tooth capital of the world (so called for the fossilised, prehistoric sharks teeth that wash upon the shores of Venice and Caspersen Beaches). The fossils roll up on the salt-and-pepper sands around the fishing pier and the annual Sharks’ Tooth Seafood Festival in April celebrates this dental phenomenon and the town’s bounty of fish.
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