SIGHTSEEING IN KEY WEST (Courtesy of the Travel Channel )
You can easily see Key West on foot (or better yet, on bicycle). It’s small and a snap to navigate. Leave time for browsing the shops, people watching—especially good in this bohemian community—and stopping for lunch in one of the dozens of restaurants.
The main sights are concentrated in Old Town, on the northwestern part of the island. Duval Street is the main thoroughfare. Old Town’s streets are lined with picket fences and frame houses decorated with gingerbread. Hibiscus, bougainvillea, frangipani, kapok and mango trees give the island a tropical feel and smell. Ever-present sea breezes cool the town even in the midst of summer. Artists, writers and life’s fringe dwellers find the city an inspiration and haven and contribute to its t olerant, funky atmosphere.
However, even Key Westers respect some traditions. Each evening at dusk they gather, as they have for years, in Mallory Square, at the northwest corner of Old Town, to give a standing ovation to the sun as it settles below the horizon. (In recent years, jugglers, mimes, musicians and vendors have joined the party.)
To get the big picture of the town, you can climb the 88 steps to the top of the Key West Lighthouse, built in 1847. (Open daily 9:30 am—4:30 pm; US$6 adults, US$2 children; corner of Whitehead Street and Truman Avenue, phone 294-0012.) Descend to ground level and get the lay of the land by taking a tour on the Old Town Trolley or the Conch Train. Each takes about 90 minutes and will introduce you to some of the sights you’ll want to spend more time exploring later.
A must-see is the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum,
a charming Spanish-colonial home with pool and gardens, where the famed
author lived in the 1930s (with more than 5 0 cats)—check out the feline
cemetery in the back yard. A pride of their six-toed
descendants still roams
the grounds. (Open daily 9 am—5 pm; US$6.50 adults, US$4 children; 907
Whitehead St., phone 294-1575.) A companion site and another testament to
Hemingway’s enduring legend is Sloppy Joe’s, a bar where 1930s
black-and-white photos of the writer adorn the walls and cracked tile floors
and turn-of-the-century wooden fans attest to a Key West of days gone by.
The Key West Cemetery offers another quirky peek at the city’s history. This picturesque 21-acre/9-hectare graveyard in the center of the island is a Key West original, marked by aboveground, stone-encased caskets (the island’s geology can’t accept anything six feet under). On one headstone, a grieving widow has written of her departed spouse, “At least I know where he’s sleeping tonight.” But the most famous inscription is “I told you I was sick.” (Open anytime; free; on the corner of Margaret Street and Angela Street.) After your cemetery ramble, you could stroll down nearby Fleming and Southard Streets to get an idea of what Key West looked like before it became a commercial success.
Key West’s Oldest House (the Wreckers’ Museum), built in 1829, contains artifacts from the wreckers’ era. (Open daily 10 am—4 pm; US$4 adults, US$0.50 children; 322 Duval St., phone 294-9502.) A modern-day wrecker displays some of his booty at the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society Treasure Museum. This museum houses a sampling of the US$400 million in gold and silver objects that Fisher brought up from sunken 17th-century ships—including the Spanish galleon Atocha. It also has replicas of doubloons and emeralds. (Open daily 9:30 am—5 pm; US$6.50 adults, US$2 seniors and children; 200 Greene St., phone 294-2633.)
The Audubon House and Gardens is named for famous naturalist John Audubon, who visited there in the mid 1800s. The three-story house is classic Key West architecture—the entire wooden structure is held together with wooden pegs. Inside are some of Audubon’s original etchings and lithographs and the period furnishings of its former owner, Capt. John Geiger, once one of Key West’s wealthiest citizens. Adjacent to the house are tropical gardens. (Open daily 9:30 am—5 pm; US$5 adults, US$4 seniors; 205 Whitehead St., phone 294-2116.)
For a fine example of Victorian architecture stop by the Curry Mansion, once the home of Florida’s first millionaire and now an inn. (Open daily for tours 10 am—5 pm; US$5 adults, US$1 children; 511 Caroline St., phone 294-5349.)
The Key West Bight (old shrimpers’ docks) on the Gulf end of Greene Street was recently renovated by the city, but it retains its honky-tonk spirit. Most of the sunset cruise sailboats and dive boats berth in the Bight.
Just outside Old Town on the west end of the island is Harry S. Truman’s Little White House Museum, where the Washington power elite came to unwind during the Truman years. “I’ve a notion to move the capital to Key West and just stay,” Truman wrote his wife Bess. (Open daily 9 am—5 pm; US$7 adults, US$3.50 children; 111 Front St., phone 294-9911.) You can go even farther back in time at the nearby Fort Zachary Taylor State Historic Site. This museum of Civil War weapons and memorabilia has the largest collection of Civil War cannons in the U.S. (Open daily 8 am-sunset; US$1.50 admission; at the foot of Southard at the Truman Annex, phone 292-6713.)
But the best museum dedicated to the history of Key West is the East Martello Museum and Gallery, a Civil War fort on the southeast side of the island with grand views of the Atlantic Ocean. The museum’s artifacts illustrate Key West’s history of shipwrecks, pirates and cigar making. The museum also showcases local artists. (Open daily 9:30 am—5 pm; US$5 adults, US$1 children; 3501 S. Roosevelt Blvd., phone 296-3913.)
Lots of people visit the Southernmost Point, more for the photo opportunity than anything else. That’s where Key West’s geographic positio n as the most southerly land mass in the continental U.S. is noted by a giant striped buoy (and a sign that reads Ninety Miles to Cuba).