The personal authentic travels of a world-wide drifter, you'll always see pics of me at the locations being described (if the other blogs you're reading don't do that, odds are they were NEVER there, just saying…)
Helen, Georgia, a tiny GA town with a local population of slightly over 500, is one very large tourist trap of a town aimed at locals of German extraction trying to reconnect to their ancestral roots, or anyone else in search of a little touch of a Bavaria in the midst of the Appalachian foothills. Not worth visiting unless you’re already in the area and looking German food.
Note: I took this trip BEFORE having set up my blog — although I had been intending to do it for months already, so I didn’t take anywhere as many pictures as I probably should have.
I had been staying at my friend’s place in Dalton GA for a few weeks, with the intention of staying a full two months (I remember her saying “I have no idea WHAT you’re going to do here for all that time” — suffice it to say I proved her wrong), and this was near the top of her list of side trips I should consider. The drive there from Dalton was very pretty (as directed by my new car’s GPS device — which I have grown to LOVE, never had one before), and took me there via state highways (think two lane roads) that I would never have otherwise had the guts to take.
For most of the trip I was pretty much alone on the roads, which is both restful and a tad terrifying — when you have no idea where you are. In retrospect (looking at a maps attached to my images) I know now that my GPS took me all along the Richard B Russell Scenic Highway (which is a National Forest Scenic Byway) up over some nearby foothills, through the Chattahoochee National Forest, and and into the valley where the town of Helen is located.
View from GA state road 348
The trip took me about two hours and like I said, I was instinctively ‘lost’ but trusting my new GPS system to know where we were going for most of the way … According to the folks who drove up on their motorcycle (see above image) at this location we are still about 8 miles away from Helen GA.
From a business development perspective what makes Helen interesting is that once they realized that their local industry had failed, rather than kicking a dead horse, they opted for something completely different; taking advantage of their location adjacent to a National Forest they decided instead to become a tourist destination town. Per Wikipedia: “Formerly a logging town that was in decline, the city resurrected itself by becoming a replica of a Bavarianalpine town, in the Appalachians instead of the Alps. This design is mandated through zoning first adopted in 1969, so that the classic south-German style is present on every building, even on the small number of national franchisees present (such as Huddle House and Wendy’s).”
When I arrived I was hungry with a capitol H, having not eaten anything that morning other than a cup of coffee. So, my very first stop was at the first decent looking German restaurant I could find Hofbrauhaus Resturant in the picture at the top of this blog, which at the time also had decent YELP reviews… BLECH. I had one of my favorite childhood dishes, Weiner schnitzel!! As a kid I was one of those incredibly picky eaters who was 10 lb underweight and could drive my mom crazy by going for a full day on three french fries and a glass of chocolate milk. One summer we were in Austria following my dad around as he presented academic papers at conferences, and my mom had discovered I would actually eat Weiner schnitzel, so the first priority was checking if a restaurant served that, and THEN was there anything else on the menu for the rest of the family. So I know my Weiner schnitzel (which I am said to say I can no longer eat because my penchant for everything fried has resulted – I was diagnosed two months after this trip — in liver disease); and to be bluntly honest I was mightily unimpressed with how this restaurant prepared it … as in, “I drove TWO hours for THIS?”
That said, the place DOES have a good view of the river…
The next thing I did upon arriving was, using just my phone phone and the various apps I had on it, I tried to find a decent place to spend the night. There were NOT as many choices as I would have hoped (I have since gotten much more skilled at delving those depths from my iPhone), and at that time I had not yet installed the Airbnb.com app into my iPhone (I was still using a iPhone 4s then, which was already four years old, had VERY limited memory and was starting to slow down from old age), so I was forced to limit my search to national chains — I now know better. I ended up with a room at the Hampton Inn, and since the hotel was half empty I was able to convince the staff to upgrade me to a room with a balcony overlooking the Chattahoochee river for no extra fee.
Once I found out the name of said river I couldn’t help myself, I started singing the Alan Jackson tune, “Way down yonder on the Chatahochee never knew how much that muddy water meant to me…” incessantly. However, looking at the picture, and based on how all the buildings near the river are either on 8 foot stilts or behind equally high restraining walls, I am guessing it floods fairly often.
After having checked in I went to walk around and discovered that this town closes down way early, and from the looks of it most stores don‘t open till noon. Only two stores still open at 5:30 were both owned by what I am guessing are a man and a woman who were both Indian (India) and I am betting are man and wife– work ethic anyone? The whole town looked like it could be part of the German exhibit at Disney-world’s Epcot, the next day when I walked around I discovered that most of the shops have at least one German style hat with a feather in it … only done on the cheap, so that it kind of reminded me of Old Town in Orlando, which I had just lived next door to for about four months, only sans the amusement park rides and haunted houses, etc.
Other than that there were a handful of interesting shops, like this one place that had it’s own hive to produce it’s own honey… but not much otherwise
Why yes, our honey is Fresh! @Betty’s Country Store
Upon checking in, I had told the staff member there how unhappy I had been with the food at the Hofbrauhaus and could he make a better suggestion for my Dinner. He suggested The Bondesee, saying their were the only place in town with an actual chef from Germany, and that it was the place all the locals in town preferred.
And now, after having eaten there… Wow!!! I STRONGLY suggest Bondesee German Restaurant to anyone in the general vicinity of Helen GA.
Walking in the 12 cats who seem to believe that the front entrance of the restaurant is their home (so that the covered patio area which they seem to have taken over stinks of cat urine) would NOT normally have been a good sign, nor would my conversation with the grumpy owner when I swung by there at around 6pm … had it NOT been for the recommendation of a local those two things would have sent me scurrying elsewhere…
However, after having now eaten there, the chef is apparently a man after my own heart in that he seems to believe that there’s no such thing as too much garlic. Seriously, I don’t think The Stinking Rose (a San Francisco institution) serves less garlic… I was in garlic heaven. The butter for the bread was amazing enough to eat without the bread, and the mushroom appetizer came in a cream and garlic sauce that was divine (I had it as a side for my Weiner schnitzel because ALL the sides were carbs (I opted for the Spätzle) … and the portion sizes for me (a single) were more than enough for two people.
The German beer looked dark and a bit scary, but it was very smooth and went really well with the food. Oh, and the OH SO GAY — to the point where he was a caricature of gayness — waiter just CARDED me!!! Talk about how to make a 51 year old woman happy. He looked genuinely shocked to see we were the same age.
One of the things you need to remember when in this part of the country is that you are not in the deep south, but rather in Appalachia. People tend to distinguish between “The North” and “The South” by the historical civil war Union vs Confederate boundaries, and the “Western states” being those that joined the USA after the war — and usually involve cowboys and Indians, but from a cultural standpoint that would be a mistake. I tend to agree with Colin Woodard who instead breaks the US up into 11 cultural regions, and Dalton GA by that reckoning falls into the Appalachia. As a result, one of the great things about this area is the active Appalachian music scene. I ran into live music of this sort on numerous occasions while staying in the area, for instance, there was live music every Thursday night at the whole foods in Chattanooga.
On this occasion it was about 3pm, and my old friend from art school and I … whom I am currently staying with, she also has a travel blog (hers can best be described as “sophisticated and restful vacationing” while mine is more about ‘cheap & earthy travel’), were all dressed up tonight and found we had no where to go. We had been planning to go to this local street event here in Dalton that my friend had been talking about for days. Unfortunately, she had assumed it was going to go till 5pm, when to our chagrin we discovered it had already ended at about 2pm. But, since she’s a woman who will never be daunted, she did some research and found that a band was playing downtown at a moonshine distillery/bar.
Now the thing you need to realize is Dalton’s downtown is that it is about 5 minutes wide, and 10 minutes long … and that’s walking. And yet, you can still, well … to be fair, on a Saturday night, still find cultural things to do within in.
You can’t really tell from my recording, the reverb off the brick walls in the space wasn’t conducive to it, but the band, called “Unbridled Strings“ is very good, with a high level of musicianship.
One of the amusing things that happened that night was the tempreture was beginning to drop and my friend, who was wearing a kind of light and breezy blouse said just as the band had stopped to take a break: “I’m getting a little cold”
Me: “You know you could pop home and get a jacket and be back before the break is over”
Essentially, she is so used to living here that she forgot just how small the place is
(when I first met her we were in art school in London, and she was living in LA).
The end point of a civil war raid you probably never heard of, that resulted in the first medals of honor ever given. Interesting, both from historical and engineering standpoints. I suggest that you hire the docent to take you around (optional).
I actually came here twice, the first time I was amazed at how popular the attraction was, till I realized that I had timed my visit badly to coincide with the republican and democratic Georgia primaries, which I had not realized was happening that day, and had known that the visitor building doubles as a voting center (in cause you’re interested: for the democrats Hillary Clinton won 71.3% over Sanders’ 28.2%, while Donald Trump won 38.8% against 4 remaining challengers).
That said, inside the visitor building is where you buy your tickets, and hire the docent to take your around to the tunnel and the house in a little golf cart (which is optional, but I strongly suggest it). The museum inside the center is small but interesting, so you can easily spend at about an hour in there — it is as much about trains, and life during the civil war as it is about the battles that took place here; it is, as the sign says, a “self-guided” museum, but there is a system in place where, assuming you’ve got a cell phone with you, you call a number and punch in codes for narrations of most of the more interesting exhibits. Right near the entrance you will also find a wall with a plethora of advertisers for other things to see in the area — I often find these to be far more useful than TripAdvisor or Yelp in trying to find things of interest — in part because they act as a little stack of reminders.
Because my first visit was thwarted by the elections I came back here a second time about a week or so later and paid my $10 for what turned out to be a very enthusiastic old guy (the docent) to take me around on a golf cart while explaining it all to me. First he drove through the now retired train tunnel … it’s about a 1/4 of a mile long from end to end, and is maybe 1/3 of a mile trek away from the parking lot… and along the way he explained all about how it was built, in great detail. It’s actually kind of cool looking in there, and his explanation of how it was built, back before they had the tools of today, was very interesting.
Of note, it was on the hill above the tunnel that the battle of Tunnel Hill took place, and I was told that there’s a yearly reenactment of the battle done every September, which hopefully I’ll be able to see at some future point. (Part of my reason for being in town was I have an old college friend — also a travel blogger — who lives in Dalton, and it’s my intention to spend more time here… as I am considering it as a place to retire to.)
Then he described the Union initiated civil war campaign the tunnel is famous for; it involved the federalists stealing a train from the confederates, intending do as much damage as possible to the militarily strategic rail line on the trip back north to Chattanooga, with the southerners in hot pursuit. Ultimately, the campaign was a bust (for the Union soldiers, i.e., they got caught) but resulted in the first Medals of Honor ever given (which is also why there is a museum dedicated to that medal located in nearby Chattanooga).
Afterwards, he took me to the adjacent Clisby Austin House (VIDEO!!), which is located just up the hill from the tunnel. The house had been owned by Reverend Clisby Austin a baptist minister of the nearby church, farmer and owner of the small store he next to his house, a nearby building that served as a hotel for train passengers, and apparently also helped build the nearby brick church. According to my docent there were rumors that he was also a spy for the Union, because he was very public about being against the south’s secession. What is certain is that he observed part of what became known as the “Great Locomotive Chase.”
Later, during the Battle of Chickamauga, the house was used as a hospital. During that battle, General John Hood, considered by many as one of the best commanders of divisions and brigades the Confederacy had, was injured and his leg had to be amputated. (As a side note: After leaving Georgia I read the historical novel, “Killer Angels“, by Michael Shaara, about the battle of Gettysburg — which won the Pulitzer Prize, and in it he makes a major point of describing how a man can be talented at certain leadership jobs in a military, but an absolute disaster at other ones, and you never knew till they were actually in that position who would be good at what, a compelling truth that made me again think of John Hood, so I felt I had to add it here.) One of the interesting factoids is that they cut his leg off near where he fell, and when they moved him here to the hospital/house for rehabilitation they brought the leg along, so that should he die, they could bury him with the leg. However, he didn’t die, so while the leg is buried here the rest of him is laid to rest in Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans, Louisiana (also on the National Register of Historic Places).
Then, during what I’m guessing was the second of the Battles of Dalton (there were three, all with the same name), the home served as temporary headquarters for General Sherman (Union) who supposedly stayed there for three nights while planning his Atlanta Campaign.
So all sorts of good stories are to be had regarding the house, none of which you’ll learn if you don’t hire the docent. (Note: Unfortunately, they don’t let you take photos inside the tunnel or the house unless you pay for the right. Of course, IF you go though the tunnel surreptitiously, sans a docent, you might be able to get away with it, but I’m not suggesting that… no of course not)
This was the first military park formed in the US. It memorializes the Civil War battle fought Sept. 18-20, 1863. So many bullets flew within these woods during this battle that the surrounding trees because valueless for milling, due to all the bullets embedded within them. If you have any interest in Civil war battles, check out this highly documented park. — Don’t forget to use your National Parks pass.
I strongly suggest that you reserve this park for a nice day when you have a few hours to spend; stop first in the visitor center. There is a 24min documentary reenacting the battle. Watch this first, and then tour the battlefield. Also, in the gift store — assuming your car has a CD player you can purchase a guided tour of the park CD for $10. On various signs around the park you will also find cell phone accessible annotations, but those are far fewer, and interestingly do not duplicate the information available on the CD.
This is completely a aside, but I assume (wrongly of course) when I’m in a historic national park that the other people around share my interest in history… at this location The guy parked next to me was driving a yellow Jeep by the name of the Rubicon, and I told him I loved the name of his Jeep because of its historical nature.
So he said, ‘it is named after a river in California’ and I responded “I think it’s more likely that that river was named after the Rubicon ‘river’ which marks the northern border of Rome which Cesar crossed with his troops, essentially declaring war on Rome itself; this is why the term ‘crossing his Rubicon’ now means passing your point of no return”
He looked a little embarrassed and said, he had no idea that was the source but he probably agreed that that’s why they named the river in California Rubicon … and might be the also named the Jeep that…
That said, scattered all throughout the park are all sorts of beautiful memorials both to the fallen, and to particular maneuvers that occurred in that location.
As I look at these things I imagine the families of the various regiments and corps, fundraising and organizing in order to pay for these things to be built to the fallen.
And then with signs like this one (above), you have got to wonder, did they bring back soldiers to walk the fields and try to come to a consensus of what events happened where?
This, The Brotherton Family Farm (above) is where miscommunication among the Union generals resulted in a half-mile break in their lines allowing the Confederates to break through.
This is Wilders Tower (above), it marks the site where a small group of Union soldiers held back the Confederates long enough to allow the other Union soldiers to retreat to Chattanooga. They were able to do so in part because they had a new technology of repeating gun The sound of which confused the Confederates into thinking that there was a much larger group of Union soldiers here then were actually present. (Also let’s hear it for national park toilets that are out in the middle of nowhere! I had been holding it in for the last hour)
And here is a picture I shot in haste as a group of about 15 baby deer surrounded my car!!
Snoodgrass Hill
The sun was now setting, which I had been warned is when the park closes, so I headed home.
America is full of things like this, with the world’s biggest ball of yarn probably being the most famous (there was a movie made in 1996 about a less than angelic man who claimed to be the Arch Angle Michael — played by John Travolta — coming to earth, and all he wanted to see were these sorts of things); anyone road tripping across America is sort of obligated to search them out.
This was the advertised as the “Worlds largest peanut.” It is located in Ashburn, GA., along Interstate 75 of of exit 82, one of the two main highways into and out of Florida and stands 20+ feet tall.
Just North of the monument is Carroll’s Sausage and Country store which is huge and is in my humble opinion TOTALLY worth a pit stop. They had a pretty good (and very well priced) ruben sandwich, and sold all sorts of VERY southern, amazing and gourmet barbecuing ingredients and accoutrements.
Worth a full day stop in Tifton, Georgia (whose only other advantage is affordable hotels), when driving via Interstate 75 to or from Florida. I dedicated four hours to it, and didn’t come close to seeing it all.
I found a very good 15min film on Youtube about the how the museum is integrated with the Georgia University of agriculture, and supported by the state. It also includes interviews with the various docents and the crafts that they teach at the site.
While there is an indoor museum of agriculture at the back, the real draw here, which should enthrall kids and parents alike, is the historic village; it is probably the most complete example of what I like to call living museums that I’ve seen so far, complete with docents giving demonstrations.
When I first arrived at the attraction I was a little confused. There are essentially two entrances, the Georgia Museum of Agriculture, which is visible from Interstate 75, and the country store. When driving there, you first pass the country store (which seems to just be a store with a normal sized parking lot) and then there’s a driveway that seems to be beckoning you towards the Georgia Museum where there is a massive parking lot. So I drove to the Museum, parked, walked in, and was told by two historically garbed elderly women sitting at the entrance table there (knitting, no really, knitting), that in fact I was supposed to go to the country store first.
The Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village is actually a very good example of this “living museums” trend: they have brought in different buildings, historic ones from around the area and created a town of 1800s technology. To enter the town you ride a real steam locomotive train (the day I went the “conductor” looked to be about 8 years old),
and then are let off at the train depot (fully recreated) and left there to explore the surrounding homes, farms (with animals and fields), and often elderly docents in historic costumes/garb, who will walk you through the homes and explain whose home it was, where it was moved from, aspects of the histories of the families that owned the home, and how they ‘functioned’ with the 1800’s technology.
The old school (the original 1895 building)
There is also a working wood-mill, and a working gristmill, etc., where again docents will talk about the history of the building, and do demonstrations of the function the building fulfilled, usually allowing young kids to be involved in the safest jobs.
In the Mill, the docent also pointed out to us a board in the building where locals had sketched outlines of their most recent catches, comparing sizes, listing dates, etc.
Then there was also a downtown area of the village where there were stables, complete with the local masonic lodge (with all its secrets revealed, and explained)
and a doctor’s office, with all the doctor’s tools of the day:
They even had the historic home of the riches man in town, complete with a lot of the family antiques — this home is locked up, and wait outside on the porch for the docent to bring you in for a tour.
I was there during an off day, but still about 1/5 of the buildings had docents in them. Apparently if you come during their scheduled activity days, weekends, etc., all the building will have docents who are either explaining, or giving trade and cooking demonstrations of lost skills.
Initially I found this restaurant on a Orlando Newspaper’s list of “things you must do in Orlando before you die” which was aimed at locals rather than tourists. It said you HAD to try the Bánh mì at Anh Hong’s restaurant (otherwise known as,’Vietnamese sandwich,’). These sorts of subs, hoagies or po’boys (depending on what part of the US you come from) have become all the rage recently, and have resulted in mom and pop joints springing up in major cities that have been giving the chains Subway and Jimmy Johns a run for their money nationwide.
There are MANY vietnamese places in Orlando’s ChinaTown area (which is essentially all along Colonial Drive), this would be the one that the Vietnamese go to (I had this on the authority of theVietnamese guy who runs a grocery store there).
I went there maybe three or four different times, even though it was no where near where I was staying, and took along friends who were locals (who have kept going). The food there is highly affordable, tasty, fresh, and like I said, not geared towards western pallets. The menu extends far beyond the sandwiches to include all of your Vietnamese favorites, such as Pho, etc.,.
A must do: I paid $28 for a 30 minute airboat ride, but since business was slow the pilot kept us out there for over 45min.
Anyone going to central Florida or further south down the peninsula, into the Everglades proper, really HAS to do at least one Airboat ride, it’s obligatory. I did this as sort of a last minute trip before heading north out of the land of Amusement parks (aka Orlando). I had intended to do it since arriving in June, but weather was unseasonably warm this year, and it wasn’t till January that it was finally cool enough for me to be willing to spend a full day in the sun — they were finally having a cold snap that demanded a sweater. I have to say it was very pleasant ride.
Perhaps it was the location (near Orlando which I opted for over driving an hour away from town) but the ride was more about being out in the sun and the wind, and enjoying the view, than about seeing wildlife — although we did seem some. In the picture below, if you put your nose right up to the screen and look to the left of my shoulder — just to the right of the chain — you can see a large grey spot which is a smallish alligator (although its easier to see in the bottom right image). I think we MAYBE saw two alligators the whole trip.
The bird in the image to the bottom left is one that is almost extinct (I forget the name). The driver told us that they seeded the swamp with a type of snails that these birds like to eat, and because the boat kicks up the snails from the bottom the birds have learned to follow the boats. All in all a highly enjoyable trip. Personally I think a 45min trip was long enough.
Today I watched history being made! I watched a rocket take off from Cape Canaveral, and then LAND again where it was supposed to. Humanity has crossed a technological threshold!!
If you draw a line straight down from the takeoff to the far bank (next to the blue building), thats’ about where I sat
My whole time I was in Florida I kept MEANING to go to Cape Canaveral, but just was never able to drag my ass out there, for a host of reasons, including inertia. The first liftoff I saw with my own eyes was on this trip, and it was quite by accident; I was at Disney’s Epcot, and happened to look in the right direction at the right moment and saw it. It was amazing. But I wanted to see one up close (well, as close as legally possible without paying an arm and a leg for the privilege). Finally, I saw on one of the web pages that track this stuff that there was going to be a liftoff (launch) tonight.
I drove out to the east coast of Florida to see the 8:30pm blast off… hopeful that it would happen. The last takeoff I intended to go to got scraped because of bad weather, and we did initially have a forecast for storms for tonight as well, but happily the forcast has changed and moved those off till tomorrow.
Per the suggestion of one of my best and oldest friends (the guy whose Winter Garden house I lived in from June through August — it is like a 15 min. drive from his place to the back gate of Disney) I left early (so that I could drive almost an extra hour south of NASA) in order to get a GOOD hot dog for dinner from what was advertised as the Florida branch of “Mustard’s Last Stand” ( a Chicago institution for the Northwestern University crowd) before heading north again to see the lift off. My friend knew it was there but had not yet had the chance to try it. Unhappily it turned out to be a totally bogus waste of time. The original Mustard’s is located right next to my alma mater’s football stadium, and its dogs are regularly listed as the best in the whole Chicago area — hence my willingness to drive an hour out of my way while in Florida. The Evanston/Chicago one has been around since 1969, this Florida rip off (who nabbed the url first) has only been around since 1987 (and how scummy is that? First they copy the name — adding Chicago style eatery so as not to infringe, and then they nabbed the url, Seriously!). There was spotty rain while I got my dog, and I hoped they wouldn’t scrap the liftoff again.
Note: I was EXCEEDINGLY unhappy with my Cheese dog, and it was totally NOT worth the extra drive (which almost had me late for the launch) … Firstly, they used the cheaper Velveeta as the cheese (BLECH) instead of using high quality Merkts cheese like they should have (even I know for a fact that it IS sold in local Florida stores, so no excuse there). Also secondly, while the hot dogs were Vienna beef, they were those really skinny small ones and NOT the big meaty ones any Chicagoan would have expected, so it was mostly bun… MAJOR rip off.
Driving back up I stopped at a local gas station and asked where I should go to watch the liftoff. The guy working the counter and the female customer (who looked to be about 30, but who was CLEARLY a meth addict) both suggested jetty park as the best free location; but, by the time I got down here it was kind of obvious from the backed up cars that parking near there would be an issue. So, I grabbed the first parking space near that I could find (way at the other end, by the Milliken’s Reef restaurant) and ended up sitting next to two older gentlemen on a bench. There were a LOT of people here, so I could guess how crowded the preferred location was.
RIGHT behind where I was standing there was this bizarre, modernistic looking building (built to kind of look like a rocket), which turned out to be named Exploration Tower… they had turned off all the lights in it, right before the lift off, and then they came back on afterwards… and I thought to myself “that would have been a great place to view the take off….” When I got home I was looking at some of these images on line and found the one from Reuters at the top of this blog, which I’m willing to bet money was taken from that building.
Granted, my recording isn’t very good… I did it off of my iphone 4s, which is already on its last legs (I wanted a new one but the iphones they released are SO much bigger that they don’t suit my small hands, am waiting for them to release a replacement for the 5s before I buy one). However, this is why G-d made Youtube.
That said, the fact is no recording really does justice to the experience. What sounds like wind hitting the microphone was this massive roaring noise that seemed to be everywhere all at once — that you just have to experience. And there was the camaraderie of the crowds, the excitement in the air, etc…. you just can’t feel that in the videos, the roaring and cheering of the crowds, so loud that you could even hear the folks across the bay cheering when the SpaceX stuck the landing…
It was amazing!
And I was THERE!!!! …. The whole drive home I was feeling “l saw something historic today” and then, the two hours of driving and the overwhelming emotional excitement of the launch of the space X, had worn me out completely by the time I got home.
Granted, Americans consider this to be a girl thing (mother daughter or gal friends), but if you’ve got the time, consider doing a High-Tea at Disney World. (And if you’ve got cash to burn, consider doing the Princess high tea).
People, when they go to Disney, tend to forget that there’s way more to do their than just go into the parks. Disney World is 43 square miles large, about TWICE the size of Manhattan Island, and almost as big as San Francisco. Sure, there are the four main theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood and Animal Kingdom), two water parks (Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach), and five golf courses (for the fathers who refuse to do the parks)…. but there is in fact much more than that. One of my favorite things to do is to explore the various theme hotels (all of which are way to expensive for me to seriously consider staying there, unless I was sharing the expense with friends), and explore the activity options available there.
One of the most impressive hotels was the third one built (1988) on the campus, namely the Victorian era themed Grand Floridian Beach Resort (although it’s exterior is modled after the Mount Washington Hotel in New Hampshire, which is one of America’s Historic Hotels).
Visible, from across the lagoon while at the Magic Kingdom, most visitors don’t bother exploring the hotel, but they should. Adjacent to it is Disney’s Wedding Pavilion (no seriously weddings are a big business at Disney World for people who really want the fantasy wedding)
so it’s fairly common to find folks posing for their wedding photos at the Grand Floridian, and in addition I’ve seen at least TWO occasions of pageant contestants coming there for award ceremonies, once it was the child contestants, which is an american cultural phenomena if ever there was one (Honey Boo Boo anyone?).
At the back of the hotel is a restaurant called Narcoossee’s which has decent food, but more importantly, its back deck overlooks the lagoon and is one of the prime viewing areas for the Magic Kingdom’s nightly fireworks, including the very special displays (way pricer) that they do for special events like the Xmas or Halloween parties. You do NOT need to pay park entrance fees to see it, and they pump the music for display through the speakers embedded in the ceiling of the balcony (which will protect you from incremental weather.
Plus the Grand Floridian makes one heck of a gingerbread house during the Christmas season, which you can actually walk into — its a shop that sells gingerbread cookies, etc., and if you get there when it’s just gone up the whole area is flooded with the smell of gingerbread.
One of the things you can do at this hotel, other than shop is, High Tea at the Grand Floridian Hotel, although it is really something you share with a friend. I had ‘living at Disney World’ for about five months when my friend Gina came for a short visit, which gave me a defensible opportunity to finally do this (let’s face it, doing high tea by yourself is kind of pathetic).
The High Tea is served in the cafe below the band, you don’t hear them there
While this places offers high teas that go for as high as $175 for adults (which includes caviar and champaign), or can go staggeringly high for the (spoiled child) Princess teas (see menu above for complete pricing), we opted for the far more economical, and princess-less, Cheshire Tea:
First Course
Selection of exotic fruits and imported cheeses
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Second Course
Medley of Finger Sandwiches accompanied with Berries, Cheese and Lavosh
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Third Course
Buttery Scone and Jam Tart
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Finale
Choice of delicate House-Made Pastries, Strawberries and Creme, or English Trifle
Choice of tea
$48.00/person
By the end of it, both Gina (who you can see is slim) and I (who is a good 50 lbs past slim) were stuffed to the gills. The meal can best be described as decadent, albeit a bit pricy. We really loved the cheeses.
Rebecca Radnor's Personal Blog: Consider yourselves warned! 