For some odd reason, there seems to be quite a few cities in the state of Florida that has ‘Winter’ included in the name. This somewhat boggles my mind, as Florida is well known for its hot weather and high humidity. One of the cities that I visited during my time in Florida was Winter Park, which is where many locals would go to shop (the tourists would probably shop at the amazing outlet malls in Orlando).
At this time, I was staying with Joseph’s aunt in Orlando, Florida while he went back to L.A. to get back to work. One of the places that his aunt recommended touring was Winter Park, and in particular, their Scenic Boat Tour. So off I went on a nice, bright day, walking down a small-town-feels shopping area on Park Ave. and into an off-the-beaten-path residential road to where the boat tour dock was located.
The tour was one hour long and started on the hour. I didn’t think anyone really knew about this boat tour because it was in such an obscure location and not quite close to the main attraction of Park Ave. And yet, when it came time for my tour, my boat that could hold around 20 people was completely full.
To be quite honest, I attended the tour not knowing one bit of what it would be about, except that it was a Lake tour. Though the one hour went by quite fast, I wasn’t really fond of the content of the tour.
Think Los Angeles’ “Celebrity Home Tours” with the double decker buses that go around Beverly Hills. That’s basically what it was, but around the lake.
All we saw and heard about were the multi-million dollar grandeur homes that resided by the lakes, who lived in them, and just the history behind many of the homes. I am not a fan of these tours. I just feel like a sneaky nosy stalker peeking into the private homes of these people. As you can tell, I didn’t really take photos of the homes.
One thing that I did find pretty interesting about one of the homes is that Mister Rogers of the t.v. program on PBS called Mister Roger’s Neighborhood lived in one of the properties. The tour guide claimed that he based “The Neighborhood” on Winter Park! Isn’t that neat?!
HOWEVER, the lake is gorgeous and going through some of the canals was the highlight of the tour.
And the trees. THE TREES! I absolutely loved those Spanish moss trees and how grand they look! I wanted to touch some of them but apparently those trees are filled with little insects that will wreak havoc on your skin!
After the tour was done, I went back around Park Ave’s shopping area as they were having a great holiday concert in the park! Some people came hours before the concert to claim their space while I waltzed in about an hour prior, and ended up having to sit on the sidewalk, haha.
