Day 6 - Fort Lauderdale to Miami

Another morning blog as I was too busy doing awesome yesterday.

We got up, ate some cinnamon toast crunch then headed for miami! We arrived in miami at about 1030, I'd done my research and so we parked at a parking lot in miami beach that is only a dollar and hour. Then we headed off to explore.

The garage was next to Lincoln Road which is a pedestrianised street with loads of shops and restaurants so we had a wee look about there and got a wee Starbucks. Next we hopped on the tour bus. We got the it through miami beach and over to miami itself. It was amazing seeing all the buildings, the art deco on miami beach then the glass skyscrapers of miami. We changed onto the red route which went through coconut grove and coral gables which were both lovely areas. We hopped off at coral gables to go to books and books, a book shop unsurprisingly, which we'd read a lot about. It was great and had an amazing selection, definitely worth the stop.

Excitingly our next stop was Little Havana and calle ocho. We saw versailles which is the restaurant they go to in chef and the most famous Cuban restaurant in miami. The area was really interesting, we had read about a Cuban style burger and the best place to get it so that's where we headed. We were very quickly out of the more touristy area of Little Havana and it was interesting how it changed and became more run down. Our destination was El Rey de las Fritas and we were the only tourists there. It was packed so we grabbed a seat at the counter and ordered an original frita for k, a frita dulce for me, 4 ham croquettes and 2 fresh watermelon juices. A frita is a spiced Cuban style burger with crispy think sliced potato on top (think mini chips),  mine was made dulce with the addition of a slice of fried plantain. We discovered this place about 6 months ago so it had a lot to live up to and it really succeeded, the fritas were delicious! The plantain really added something new, k was a fool not to get it. We headed back down to the heart of calle ocho and went to a Cuban ice cream shop called Azucar, k had blinking sweetcorn ice cream! I had guava, cream cheese and biscuit it was delicious,  really delicious.

We then headed back over to miami beach, picked up the car and checked into our hotel for the next couple of nights. It is very lovely and only a block away from Lincoln Road.

After a wee chill we headed out for the night, we walked down Washington enjoying the sights.  We passed Miami Ink just as Yoji from the show walked out which was pretty cool.

Our first stop for the evening was the Wolfsonian museum which is free on all Friday night, hurrah! They had some great exhibitions on and the building itself was cool too. We were starving by this point so it was down one block to the 11th Street Diner which is one of those metal diners that you often see in films and TV but are actually quite rare. I had the steak with chimicurri, chips and salad (as featured on food network apparently) and k had a pear, walnut and feta salad with a side of chips. My steak was delicious and tender with no fat at all, I had no need for a doggy bag last night! K loved her salad too.

After dinner it was finally time for us to hit ocean drive! It is art deco weekend this weekend so ocean drive is pedestrianised and there are millions of stalls all along it. They were also showing The Birdcage on a big screen next to the beach,  it's set on ocean drive. It was everything I'd hoped it would be, we walked up and down taking loads of photos,  stopping to enjoy the entertainment and generally being delighted.

After our excitement of ocean drive we walked back up to Lincoln Road, grabbed a seat outside 100 montaditos and ordered a pitcher of tinto verano. It was a prime people watching spot so we just hung and chilled. Weirdly all the shops were still open,  the h&m near where we were sitting was open till midnight.

Finally, we strolled back up to the hotel and I quickly fell asleep.