Photo Friday: Florida’s Gold Coast

I’m back! Here are some pictures from our recent trip to Florida. We had gorgeous weather everyday of 80 degrees and lots of good seafood and champagne.

We stayed at The Boca Raton, a beautiful historic hotel built by city planner Addison Mizner in the 1920's. It is known for its distinctive Spanish architecture.

Currently, the resort consists of five separate hotels. We stayed in the Tower suites, pictured here.

One of the many stunning courtyards at dusk.

View of the harbor from our room. The Tower sits on Lake Boca Intracoastal. Just past the buildings on the other side is the beach and the Atlantic Ocean. We were able to take a water taxi over to that side. We spent one afternoon seashell hunting and found some beauties.

We also spent one afternoon kayaking on the Intracoastal, in a more narrow area. I can safely say I don't need to kayak ever again. The tour touted manatees and other sea creatures, but all we saw was an iguana high up in a tree and a small stingray next to our kayak as we were about to disembark. Oh, and one osprey. We did manage to tangle ourselves in mangroves right at the start. Between that and my terrifying experience kayaking on the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii, it's going to be a hard nope from now on, hubby.

A trip highlight was the day spent in Delray Beach. We went on a craft food tour, after loving the ones we've done in Miami and Louisville. This one did not disappoint!

Our first stop was El Camino. Very cool vibes!

We had chips, salsa, and a small brisket quesadilla. AND the best margarita of my life! Everything was super fresh.

The next location was a little hole-in-the-wall called Delray Goodies, featuring Asian street food. We watched as this fellow made us JianBings.

The final product pictured here, it was a crepe-like burrito filled with egg, scallion, cilantro, lettuce, black sesame seeds, chicken, hoison, chili sauce, and a very thin cracker. It was served with passion fruit green tea. It's fun to try new foods and this was one I won't forget.

This was a mural that we stopped to see along the way. Other foodie stops were: Beer Trade Co. where we got to choose from around 100 Florida craft beers along with arancini balls, Death By Pizza where we ate Detroit-style (sourdough) pizza with commentary from their charismatic chef Koby Wexler, and last, but not least, Two Fat Cookies, run by Wexler's mother and sister. Fortunately, we received packaged brownies, which we took home because that was way too much food!

Another evening found us back in Delray Beach for seafood at Lionfish.

Our meals started with a baby kale salad, followed by All Star sushi rolls. I gave in to my ban on eating sushi (I don't do raw proteins) but I will admit that it was very good. For my entree, I chose the swordfish, pictured here. My husband had the lobster cavatelli. Suffice it to say, we cleaned our plates.

One morning, we did a coastal bike ride to Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, a sea turtle rescue facility. We watched the turtle on the black mat defending his territory. 

Sea turtles in baskets. Apparently, sea turtles are solitary creatures and like to be alone.

Lots of time spent in the resort's pool area.

And time spent walking around the property . . . 

viewing the art . . . 

and checking out the massive banyan trees . . .

and this kapok tree's amazing root system.

Beautiful arched terrace on our way to breakfast each morning.

Walking by the yachts docked at the resort. Some of you know I'm a Below Deck yachtie fan.

We attended a dinner and dancing event one evening at the Addison, a bougie Boca venue also designed by Mizner and named for him. This was my husband's plate of desserts from the buffet. We had a key lime dessert almost every night of the trip. SO GOOD!

This had me super excited . . . 

and this . . . 

 

I do not kid about my champagne!

I'll be around to visit everyone over the next week. Cheers!