Lazy day on the Gulf Coast

With the temperature soaring, the best thing to do in Anna Maria is nothing. Kick back on one of the historic piers with a beer doing nothing, baste yourself on the beach doing nothing…The more energetic hire a fishing rod and dangle it in the ocean – some of them even watch their floats occasionally. Of the two piers at the Anna Maria City end of the island the Rod and Reel Pier is the smaller, less crowded and generally more down-at-heel. Park yourself on the shady balcony of the restaurant and watch your glass of beer sweat - it’s a great place to stop for a quick lunch. The City pier, larger with more facilities, attracts more crowds and queues for the bar and restaurant. The rickety wooden piers look like something out of an old movie - the perfect place for a summer romance... or maybe a shark attack, take your pick!

Quick Tips:

Anna Maria Island has several miles of sandy beaches and they weren't particularly overcrowded in May. This place really cries out for an afternoon or evening's beachcombing. Grab an ice cream from Mama Lo's and just wander. The few shops clustered in the same mall as Mama Lo’s may distract you from the beach for an hour or so. Anna Maria City have provided several shelters and grill pits for hire along the beach near the City Pier. It looks a popular spot for a great family day out or a chill out with a bunch of friends 'the day after the night before'. Anna Maria is very residential - a few bars and restaurants only. If you're into a quiet day or a season’s rental in a quiet spot - this could be it.

Best Way To Get Around:

There are three roads onto the island, two from the mainland and Bradenton to the east, the other from another island to the south. We approached through downtown Bradenton – don’t let it put you off, as the uglier aspects of modern construction haven’t crept over the bridge to any great extent. We found plenty of parking along the road next to Anna Maria City pier giving easy access to the beach. Walking anywhere too far from the water seemed like too much of an ordeal under the ever-present sun.

There's a bar and restaurant delicately stuck on the end of the Rod and Reel Pier -- alongside the rod hiring and bait shop. The pier itself is a narrow, rickety looking, sun-bleached collection of planks. There's a great deal of ambling done here -- ambling, standing, and sitting still.

On the first floor, pleasantly shadowy, is a small bar. It serves cold beer. There seems little else to say -- its clientele demand little else of it. Upstairs is a cafe/restaurant. There's a small, covered outside area where you can catch the pleasant sea breeze -- this as far as we got although there is inside seating too.

The staff are really friendly and welcoming -- they had plenty of time for us funny-talkin' British folk. The pace is gentle but not too slow -- the cold beers kept coming.

As for the food, well it was a fairly broad lunch menu with all the usual suspects well represented. There was a good range of salads, burgers, sandwiches and seafood. The blonde continued her search for the finest peel-and-eat shrimps in Florida and declared these to be "sublime". I checked the dictionary and concurred.

I had a very tasty hamburger -- the accompanying salad and fries were all of a good standard too. Far more food than you can eat, particularly at lunch on a hot day, and all for a very reasonable price considering the tourist potential of the place.

This is a simple and agreeable place to wile away a long hot day. Far less crowded than the restaurant at the end of the larger City pier, we heartily recommend it. Just a warning about the bathrooms -- if you have issues about toilet facility standards, best wait til you get home.

Bay View Plaza is situated across the road from the City Pier -- a rather new looking mall in stark contrast to the ramshackle charm of the pier itself. With windows facing towards the ocean, Mama Lo offers a great view of the seafront and an excellent, and refreshingly cool, spot to people-watch from.

On a day that was fairly quiet around the rest of Anna Maria, Mama Lo's was surprisingly busy -- it is difficult to resist the draw of ice cream in such heat. The interior has a long refridgerated counter displaying the enormous range of ice cream and sorbets that Mama uses to tempt passers-by. All manner of fruit, chocolate and nut flavours are on offer -- a good excuse to spend time choosing while pressing yourself against the chilled counter . . . I can still remember the relief of that feeling.

There's a wide range of coffee on offer alongside the ices -- the blonde and I couldn't face anything hot. Selecting our flavours -- chocolate and mint for me, some breed of orange fruit for the blonde -- we headed back out to the sun. More sensible people were taking advantage of the tables and counters available inside -- but we still managed to consume the ice creams and pose for 'Statue of Liberty style photos' before they melted.

As for the ice cream? The mint one was definitely mint -- a strong and noticable flavour on most occasions. The blonde declared her fruit based number "indifferent -- could've been anything" -- quite a lengthy critique by her usual standards.

Bay View Plaza provides a stark contrast to the City Pier and most of the other housing along the shores of the island. In place of the clapboard and faded wooden structures we have a pale peach ranch-style mall. It is not offensive as some new constructions can be . . . but it didn't fit with my view of town!

There are a mere halfdozen shops in the arcade and the masterful ice cream emporium Mama Lo. The shops are of the craftsy, boutique style souvenir ilk with 'The Museum Shoppe' selling marine based antiques with a strongly American flavour. There is some nice stuff in here and if I had a mantlepiece big enough -- and the Blonde would've let me -- I might have been tempted.

And that's kind of the story for the whole mall -- there's a French-themed gift shop which was quite unexpected and quirky. Nantucket Bay revisits the high-end souvenir market and there's a funky clothes shop too with a range for all ages.

Now, the blonde likes shops more than me . . . but I quite enjoyed a browse round these. I think it is related to the number of shops -- knowing it can't go on all day . . . and that there's ice cream close at hand.

Built in 1910, Anna Maria City Pier is an historic wooden fishing pier that plays host to fishing, drinking and dining.

The pier made us think of Jaws . . . and Amity. I'm not even sure if the shark ever bites through a wooden pier in the movie or if people run screaming from one -- but rickety structures sticking out into clear blue waters just have that effect on me.

The pier is over 700 feet long and makes for a very pleasant stroll in the sun. A restaurant sits at the sea end and it seems to do a great deal of business. We liked the look of the quieter and shabbier Rod and Reel pier for a pleasant lunch (see other entry in this journal). There's an outdoor bar and bait shop to support the less-than-frenetic fishermen and women that surround the restaurant.

If quiet contemplation and the simple life is what you seek, then you my enjoy an hour or two on the piers of Anna Maria City.

We only spent a day in town -- we then reminded ourselves that we were still young, dammit, and there were amusement parks to be seen and more bars to be tested. With a family and a rented apartment however, Anna Maria may well be considered for the future.

Anna Maria Island lies off the Florida mainland just south of Tampa. It's about seven miles long, not very wide and consists of three small cities -- Bradenton Beach, Haynes Beach and Anna Maria City (note for the English: cities can be very small . . . smaller than villages. I guess it's a political thing).

The main route onto the island takes you through Bradenton proper along state road 64. It's probably best not to pay too much attention to Bradenton -- it'll put you off (or it might make the island seem a little more delightful!). There are two other routes on, one from Longshore Key to the south and another from the mainland.

Route 64 brings you in to the middle of the island -- around Holmes Beach. This is pretty much the business centre for the island with a concentration of offices and malls here. The area is also heavily residential -- they've tried to squeeze a lot of people onto this thin strip.

The drive north up Marina Drive takes you into Anna Maria City -- this leans heavily towards the residential. Many of the homes appear to be seasonally occupied -- either second homes or holiday rentals, judging from the signs. There isn't any serious shopping infrastructure within Anna Maria -- we didn't spot any malls other than Bay View plaza. This is a place to fish, rent boats, and hole up for the winter.

Driving south will take you to Bradenton Beach -- an area much more geared up to the tourist trade proper -- the ice creams, the food, the beaches with facilities. I didn't like it as much as Anna Maria -- you have to change the pace of your life to enjoy Anna Maria -- Bradenton has speeded up to suit the tourist. Having said that, the third of the island's historic fishing piers is located in Bradenton Beach -- these are charming structures -- the perfect place for a cool beer and a great view back to the island.

Bradenton Beach is also the home to a thriving artists’ community -- the paintings on sale around this area are largely colourful depictions and interpretations of coastal living -- well worth a browse.

Whether for a day trip or a seasonal let, this island has more than enough to keep grown-ups amused. The Blonde and I could see ourselves taking six weeks off -- living on the beach, swimming every day, catching up on those books you've been meaning to read, hypnotising ourselves watching the ceiling fan go round on an afternoon when it's too hot to move . . .