We’re just back from a quick trip to the Florida Keys and Miami, not really my ideal vacation location but my husband craved sun and sand and fishing and I had never been to Key West so it was good compromise destination. There was just enough architecture to keep me occupied and he indulged me with a visit to Vizcaya. I was a bit worried about Florida’s reputation for negligent masking, but everywhere we went people wore their masks inside. The highlights of the trip for me were: Key West cottages, with their myriad shutters, porches, and brightly painted doors, our Key West hotel, which was both very stylish and very comfortable, the shrimp and grits featured at the hotel’s restaurant, with the non-traditional, amazingly delicious additions of manchego cheese and bacon, Ernest Hemingway’s house and its resident cats, many lime-flavored drinks, learning all about the female keepers of Key West’s lighthouse and the construction of Henry Flagler’s Overseas Railroad, and Vizcaya, of course. It was also very interesting to watch the coexistence of so many different vehicles on the streets of Key West, including cars, scooters, bicycles (which really rule the road) and skateboards. And because I cannot go to another tourist city without comparing its “interpretive infrastructure” to that of Salem, I must say that Key West’s signage (both wayfinding and historical) is more uniform, more aesthetic, and simply BETTER than that of Salem, although that’s not saying much as our signage is so bad.

Key West, including the interior and exterior of our hotel, the story of our marriage, and a Marathon sunset.

Lowlights? Only the heat, I would say. It was exhausting to do my characteristically energetic architectural walkabout in Key West, but as I write this bundled up in bed on a cold and wet New England spring morning, that warmth is a fond memory.

Miami & Miami Beach: Vizcaya exterior and interior, and just a few houses from a few decades later—all is turquoise and coral.