First Summer DayTrip: Downtown St. Pete



Outside laying in the field of the Dali with a view of the Fountain of Youth

This past Thursday, we were going to go to Florida Southern (my almamater) to do the official Frank Lloyd Wright Tour. It turns out that as an alumna, there are special privileges that go along with making a reservation and I had full intentions of using them. However, the deluge that hit our west central portion of Florida caused an unexpected 8 days of gray skies and damp grounds which caused us to reschedule not wanting to ruin the experience with raincoats and umbrellas. So we decided that we would refocus our plans to our very own 'Burg which was also on our list.


From the inside of the Dali

After hitting a couple of very cool furniture shops which we had never been to  and had a delicious lunch at the Lucky Dill. Afterwards, we headed to the Dali Museum which opened their new building doors on 1-11-11 at 11am. I promised Eliot that year whose birthday is only 10 days after the event that I would take him as a part of his present. It only took a year and five months later to get there. It was spectacular.


Eliot with the Dali Mustache

Inside they have a kids activity room with giant puzzles and for older kids a Dali painting scavenger hunt. Even if you aren't a fan of this eclectic Spaniard his artwork doesn't ever fail to be impressionable. I had Lydia identify items in his paintings that she knows the words to such as fish, horse, eyes, etc. She did really well. I think she too was trying to understand the wondrous mind of Dali and by the end, like many concluded it was probably a bad idea for his parents to have named him Salvador after his dead brother. She expressed that to me clearly.



Lydia with the Dali wishing tree

The best part for us was actually the outside of the museum, so if you have a little one and don't have a discount (it's a little pricey to get in) I would go and play outside. In addition to a giant Dali mustache for fun picture shots, there is a Dali wish tree which people write wishes on ribbons and tie them, a bush labyrinth, a beautiful grassy field,  the fountain of youth, a nice cafe and of course the main attraction, the architecture of the building created just for this artist. We had a ball outside, just playing.

Me and G2