Jacksonville's less touristy side

Shopping, authentic Southern restaurants, old Spanish villas

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

There is a tiny downtown subway system, but since this is the largest city in the U.S. in square mileage, I'd make sure you have a car!

This is one of Jacksonville''s original downtown hotels and features lovely (note sarcasm) 40''s/50''s architecture, but has been remodeled with some rather nice plush amenities- brass fixtures, new tile in bathrooms, two phones, data ports, etc. The towers are rooms in a new building next door, but are more pricey. But for the average room in the main building, it is quite small and the cement slab decks are only large enough to stand on.

Our best experience during our stay was laying out on the very large deck next to the pool (which has a bar next to it- but it closed at 10pm) at night and on the edge of the St. Johns River the a phenomenal view of the city. This hotel is on the other side of the river from most of downtown, which isn''t terribly inconvenient, but you are unable to walk to the Landing which is pretty much the only downtown shopping. The breakfast buffet was surprisingly disappointing- fruit (in Florida in June!) was scarce and mostly unripe honeydew with expired Trix brand yogurt. For breakfast, I recommend another place- my entry below.

One four day trip I had in Jax, my husband and I spent every morning there. It made me long for my days during college with the local college coffe house but was much cooler! One enters the deceptively large warehouse-type building from a door as part of a strip mall in an old and now rather hip part of town known as Five Points (Park street is one of five streets that intersect in a hellish circle at one end.) In the front of the room are nice tables and chairs and displays of coffee mugs, exotic teas and jars of coffee and the glass case of muffins and bagels, and then in the back is a large collection of sofas, recliners, pillows, a stage and catwalk, and a 30- foot screen suspended from the ceiling. This area has modern local art all over the walls, and magazines and games of every type were stacked all around on the tables. While we were only there in the mornings, we still enjoyed ourselves with very friendly employees ( a NYC lower east side ambience with southern hospitality- very odd combo ) and Saturday morning cartoons, and on Sunday CNN, oh, and quite good (albeit pricey)coffee!

There were always folks playing chess outside or playing the guitar and on Sunday afternoon caught an "drum circle" where whoever brings their drum for a jam session. As I'd been told from those living in NYC, there is a thriving alternative scene in ol' Jax, and Fuel is an outstanding example.

A very charming small restaurant with an amazing selection of beers and sandwiches from all parts of Europe- and are categorized as such. In one half of the restaurant, there is a small gourmet food shop and a pastry case with very good European desserts. Again, the sandwiches are a bit more expensive than your standard Jax restaurant, but as you might tell from the previous entry, we're from the D.C. area and were seeking the areas that made us feel most at home.