Key West - the best way to wind down

The Blonde and I were holidaying in Florida with my family who were focused on Disney-oriented wonderment. My Mouse threshold is not high so we mixed it up a bit and cruised down to Key West for a 'holiday within a holiday'.

There are a heck of a lot of people crammed on to that small Key, but it is surprisingly easy to find peace and sultry calm -- just step one or two blocks away from Duval or Truman. Wandering the residential areas and lazily picking out our favourite conch house or Victorian mansion was the perfect early evening ritual. I have no doubt that the English would be a more contented bunch if we just had covered porches -- hollerin' to the neighbors and invitin' them on to the swing for a glass of lemonade. Of course it would need to be hot chocolate and you'd probably need a blanket.

Key West is spring break territory and many come just for the bars and Duval Street. We sauntered up and down the strip a couple of times, resisted the temptation to buy the same wacky-slogan T-shirt at a dozen different shops and opted against the many beguiling offers to drink until we were sick. At risk of sounding like a wildlife documentary, Duval Street is where to watch the lesser-spotted American at play. An interesting study . . . thesis to follow.

Dutifully following guidebook advice, we got ourselves a spot on the wall in Mallory Square and watched the sun slip into the ocean. We duly enjoyed that romantic sensation of togetherness only a sunset can bring, intimately shared with around a thousand others and a performing beagle.

We came to Key West to laze around, eat shellfish and swim in the ocean. Oh, and a bit of pampering too. Staying at the Mermaid and the Alligator provided the idyllic setting for all this to happen. I have decided to see if the owners will adopt me. Then what I would do is get me a six-toed cat, take up big game fishing, write elegant stripped-down prose and drink my life away with a guy called Sloppy Joe. Life would thus be complete.

It’s a good thing we left when we did.

Quick Tips:

We came to Key West looking for a spot of beach action. Our host recommended Fort Zachary Taylor to the west of the island. It’s part of a National Park and surrounded by the military base. Entrance costs /day with a car, far less on foot. While the Blonde was busy catching rays, I had a wander round the old Fort -- a godforsaken military posting if ever there was. Beware of the bugs and bring your own shade.

As for choosing a place to drink and, if you're some kind of lightweight, eat the choice is nigh on endless. Top bar -- the seedy charm of Captain Tony's if only to indulge my 'Papa' fantasy. As for dining, Seven Fish is small, sophisticated and fabulous.

Even if you're as cynical as me about any event that is described as 'an essential experience', Mallory Square's sunset party is worth at least one look during your stay. The street performers have got their acts polished to perfection and there ain't many views like it.

The final tip? Bring money. Lots of it. Spend it. Don't worry about it.

Best Way To Get Around:

After the seemingly endless miles of freeway, parkway and any-which-way that makes up Orlando and its environs, it was kind of homely to be somewhere you could walk round. Getting that car parked and ambling from place to place was a blessed relief. Of course you need to dump the car somewhere -- we chose accommodation with allocated parking.

Of course, the heady excitement of being able to walk soon passed as we began to yearn for the air conditioning. The main points of interest are crowded into a densely packed series of blocks around Duval and Truman, which is about as far as we could manage in the heat of the day. We took the car for the half-mile or so out to Fort Zachary Taylor.

Mopeds are for rent at various places around the old town. You're given a quick lesson and then off you go!! The sound of mopeds will be ringing in your ears long after you leave.

This place is to die for. I may have limited experience of quality accommodation, but for less than the Pegasus International, we got to stay in an incredible, Victorian-period Key West home.

The garden is organised around the deck and small pool, shadowed by fine tropical plants. Songbirds in cages add to the ambience created by Dean, one of the joint-owners and an experienced garden designer. A relaxed breakfast is served here from 8:30 until 10am with a different, home cooked hot dish served every day alongside yoghurt, muffins, fruit and coffee. Also in the garden there is a covered porch where lemonade is served in the afternoon and wine available for guests in the early evening. These guys look after you!!

Hidden at the back of the garden are two (or three? I couldn't tell, they were hidden!) cottage rooms with their own verandahs. There are another four or five rooms in the main house, each decorated with interesting local antiques. We stayed in the Sun Room - essentially one big bay window, forming half an octagon - with sun deck, bathroom and walk in closet - light, beautifully furnished and decorated.

Dean and Paul are marvellous hosts - aside from the breakfast and wine, we were loaned beach towels and equipment and given excellent recommendations for restaurants and activities - particularly the Seven Fish restaurant, not 50 yards from the front door. The guesthouse is also in the lucky position of having parking for eight cars - not to be sniffed at in Key West!

If the other guesthouses on Truman are on the same level as this, you need go no further than a couple of blocks to find the perfect spot.

The qualities of this restaurant may well be exaggerated by its close proximity to (and contrast with) tourist central, but if you're looking for great food in a quiet setting, this is the place.

Seven Fish is in a residential street, easily reached from Duval or Truman (the main drags). It's small, extremely stylish and discrete (we walked straight past it) and feels far from the madding crowd of Duval street despite being less than ten minutes away.

The decor is modern, minimal and knowingly tasteful. Clean lines are the order of the day and, although the dining area is very small, this helps to maximise the feeling of space.

The menu is fairly short with 7 or 8 starters and about a dozen main courses with the addition of usually fish-oriented daily specials. Although seafood with an Asian flavour takes the lead, there is room for steak, chicken and meatloaf too.

The dishes we tried were excellent. We were ready for seafood after a few too many days in theme parks gorging on junk and Seven Fish certainly delivers in that department. For starters we shared the crabcakes and eggplant crostini with our dining partners - both cooked perfectly with delicious spicy sauces accompanying them. Our mains included Yellow Snapper, more crab cakes (they were that good) and the strip steak. Thai-oriented spices abounded but never overpowered the base ingredients.

The stylish simplicity of the place was a refreshing find in Key West after an evening in less salubrious surroundings. It costs that little bit more, particularly if you have wine, but it was one of the highlights of our stay.

Meson de Pepe is that noisy, warehouse-like place on the edge of Mallory Square. If you've been to see the sunset, you'll know where I mean. Our attention was drawn by the Cuban music blasting out on our first evening (Saturday) in town. The place was packed - obviously drawn in by the dancing and live music. We returned a few days later and found a slightly quieter but still appealing restaurant.

The restaurant has three main areas - 'the Cistern' and 'Patio' outside and 'the Historium' inside what was presumably a dockside warehouse. The walls are decorated with Cuba-oriented murals, old photographs and paraphenalia. It's slightly cavernous nature made it feel a little less than intimate. We certainly felt that this restaurant needed the music and dancing to bring it to life.

As for the food . . . well there's lots of it!! We didn't finish a starter of chorizo and fried plantain chips shared between two and quickly realised that main course on a similar scale would defeat us completely!! The Blonde set about a pile of marinated shrimp while I had some marinated pork with black beans and yellow rice. All perfectly fine but leaving us satisfied and a little bloated rather than savouring the delicate flavours.

The service was fine, the food reasonable and plentiful, and, most importantly in June, the beer was cold and kept coming.

Every evening we intended to go and watch the sunset . . . and every evening our inability to get our act in order meant we were eating/drinking/chatting to that nice (slightly tipsy?) couple from Jersey City . . . and then it was dark.

So the last evening, in plenty of time, we took a meandering walk through shady residential streets - heading purposefully west. The streets away from Duval and Truman are so quiet - lined by larger Victorian houses with their inviting shady porches and tree-filled front yards mixed up with the narrow, brightly painted conch houses.

You know the sort of conversation you start having - "We could work from home . . . easily. I could do some bar work. It would be great - we could live here!!" (We later saw some real estate magazines. There goes that dream).

Anyhow, despite succumbing to the odd tempting cold beer and margarita around the harbour, we made it to Mallory Square with half an hour to spare. This is why the rest of the town is so quiet! So there's the guys selling overpriced paintings, the interesting jewellery . . . (hey, if lots of tourists are gathered in one place sell 'em stuff)- some of it even looked OK. The street theatre is distracting - the performers we saw were very amusing or it might just be me who finds beagles doing tricks that funny.

And then the sun starts to plummet from the sky. Either I don't watch many sunsets (and I guess I don't) but when the sun gets close to the horizon it really seems to speed up!! We had a great spot sat on the water's edge - you're surrounded by hundreds of people doing the same thing but it seemed curiously peaceful for those few minutes as the orange glow spreads across the water. I liked it.

As with most of Key West, you don't have to walk very far to get here - one block across from Duval Street. One of the few stone buildings in Old Key west, glimpses of the very distinguished facade can be glimpsed from the pavement through the tropical trees and bushes in the front yard.

As with many of the larger Victorian properties in Key West, the house is an impressive testament to a wealthy period in the City's history. The porches that encircle the two floors of the house and the lush gardens initiate a(nother) bout of "Why don't we live somewhere warm? . . ." "We could live here . . . "

The inside of the house is interesting with period and antique furniture that belonged to Ernest Hemingway and his wife Pauline (number two of four?). What makes the visit, however, is the tour guide with their informative and humourous commentary. A life like Hemingway's is rich material for such a tour - there's nothing like stories of excessive drinking and salacious gossip to bring life to an old house. You may have to wait a few minutes but it's the difference between "It's an old house with old stuff in it" and "Aaaah . . . now that Hemingway guy really lived!"

Don't miss the writer's studio or the cats (you'll have a job to miss those) . . . and toy around with the idea of having an old bar urinal in your garden - it'll make a great story.

On the corner of Duval and Caroline, these bars have a New Orleans appearance to them (I am assured by my much more travelled partner!).

The story is the same for most bars along Duval -- dark wood, large central bar, live music, big groups getting steadily drunker and louder -- it's just what you want on a holiday night out!! The big advantage of the Whistle (upstairs, above the Bull) is it's long, wraparound balcony from which to watch the assorted goings-on of Duval. People wave at their friends who weave across to the middle of the road and try and have a shouted conversation . . . you may see the guy with the snake walking up from mallory Square and parting the crowded sidewalk like the Red Sea . . . all the bar representatives competing with each other to draw you into their MUCH finer establishment.

So . . . you get beers and margarita, lean over the balcony and go with the flow. That flow might well take you even further upstairs to 'The Garden of Eden' - the group stood next to us were heading up there. A rooftop bar where clothing is optional . . . apparently. Check out the website and you'll get the idea.

Of the bars we wandered into along Duval this was the most enjoyable . . . it was here we finally noticed it was after one in the morning and we'd driven the 400 miles from Orlando that afternoon and we really should go to sleep . . . but just one more??

So . . . being the sort of tourists who don't want to appear to be tourists (as if you can avoid it with the pink skin and camera) . . . we decided to honour Captain Tony's with our presence over Sloppy Joe's. The reason for this? Because this is where Sloppy Joe's was originally when old 'Papa' Hemingway was propping up his old pal's bar (a great story is told at the Hemingway House about the removal of the urinal when Sloppy Joe moved to Duval Street -- take the tour!!).

Of course, Captain Tony's haven't cashed in on this claim to fame . . . ??? Not much. I guess you could buy a year's worth of bar-themed T-shirts in Key West and never wear the same one twice -- including one from Captain Tony's to go with your baseball cap and souvenir cup.

Cynicism about rampant commercialism aside (if people will buy it, why don't you sell it?) Captain Tony's is an OK place to have a beer. It's a smaller space than most on Duval Street, less busy and more atmospheric -- if you like the sort of atmosphere that comes with an old dark bar that doesn't appear to have changed in 50 years (yes!!). We sat up at the bar and cast our eyes over the enormous amount of stuff nailed to the ceiling and walls. My ma would want to give this place a good tidy up.

Importantly, the beer was fine, the margaritas better than some we tried, and the live music (a lot of Stones covers if I remember rightly) pretty cool.

It's only a matter of 30 yards off Duval, but this seems to prevent hordes of people getting to it. So if you like a bit less of a crowd, a bit of history, and a game of pool, pop in to Captain Tony's.

The Fort is found within an historic State Park which is itself inside a military base of the same name on the western end of Key West. For $5/day (less on foot or cycle) you can take your car out to the Park which consists of the beach, a stretch of pine woodland and the Fort itself.

The Fort was built in the mid-19th century to guard the Florida coastways from expected trouble from the English. If the English had been a bit sharper they could've had an easy route in because the fort took a good twenty years to build - progress being slow because of inconsiderate builders dying of Yellow Fever and the like. The final construction was then manned through various conflicts including the Civil War (to my surprise it was a Union stronghold), WWI, WWII, and the Cuban Missile Crisis before becoming more than a little bit obsolete.

The Fort that remains consists of an hexagonal arrangement of batteries from different periods of the Fort's past and some of the supporting buildings. You won't get a great deal out of the place unless you take the guided tour (noon and 2pm) - the displays are quite poor and lack explanation.

As with all guided tours I've been on in the States, the quality was excellent. The guide clearly loved the place and brought to life the desolate nature of the post and the lives of the men stationed there. Picture the communal toilet with the 'revolutionary' tide flushing system and too low a tide!! The guide also draws attention to the high quality vaulted ceilings in the older of the batteries and waxes lyrical on the many types of cannon that have served the Fort . . . none of which were ever fired in anger.

If you need a break from the beach and don't have too high expectations of this little known Fort then you may have a diverting hour or so here. The Blonde opted out.

Fort Zachary Taylor beach is part of a state park on the western end of the island. You have to pass through the military base itself to get to the beach and, as the beach is part of a State Park, there is a charge ($5/day for cars - less if you walk or cycle).

The beach itself is a half mile (approx) stretch of white sand between a belt of pine trees and the Gulf of Mexico. The beach and sea are both very clean and not particularly crowded compared to Key West's other beaches. The shallows stretch for about 5 yards before the water gets too deep for paddling.

The cafe serves mainly snacks and soft drinks including fine hotdogs and the area for eating is kept pretty clean.

This is a great beach - it's peaceful, clean and has enough facilities to make it easy to spend the whole day there. The Blonde took to it immediately and, if you're of a freckly nature, there's plenty of shade. If you get bored there's even the historic Fort Zachary Taylor to wander round (or join the tour - included in the cost of admission).

The admission covers the whole day so you can come back later for a great view of the sunset away from the crowds of Mallory Square too.