Saturday March 31, 2012

We have just finished our two month stay in Bonita Springs and have decided to take a bit of the longer way home via the Gulf Coast. We managed to get some of our accommodation pre-booked but for some of it, we will be "winging it".

We got underway at about 11:30, heading north on I75 for our first night's destination of Tarpon Springs. As we were nearing Venice FL, "Karen", the voice of our GPS, notified us of a major traffic delay ahead so we bailed out to the Tamiami Trail for a leisurely drive to Tarpon Springs.

As we were travelling the Sunshine Bridge across Tampa Bay, a thunderstorm moved in and made the trip a little interesting with high winds and driving rain. 

  
By the time we arrived in Tarpon Springs to check into our hotel, the sun was out and everything was dried up. As a pleasant surprise, we got upgraded to a suite as they were overbooked.

Tarpon Springs is known for its Greek community which is centred around the Sponge Dock area. It took us a bit of driving around to find it but we finally arrived and enjoyed a walk around the harbour and the Greek shops and restaurants.

 

We settled on dinner at "Mykonos" which had an authentic Greek atmosphere along with great food.

 

After dinner, we went to Howard Park which has a man-made causeway out to a beach area.

A great place to watch the sunset on the first day of the Bayou Tour.