Small Town Florida

We took one day to explore some of Florida's small towns... the few that haven't been overwhelmed by a tidal wave of box stores, chain restaurants and tacky souvenir shops. We rented a car for the day and drove out to Kissimmee where we had a wonderful lunch in a cafe and went for a walk by the lake.


After lunch and a heavy dose of sunshine, we decided to try our luck driving out to another small town called "St.Cloud". After a few detours (we took the scenic route), we found ourselves in the middle of small town America - one that still had a main street, a hotel dating back to 1927 (The Hunter Arms - complete with Alligator skin and deer antlers on the walls...) and a local cafe "The Silver Lining" where we ate
some key lime pie with the locals - it was absolutely charming!


































The next morning we headed out to "Celebration", just outside of Disney World. This is small town à la Disney - designed specifically to be clean, aesthetically pleasing etc. We were intrigued to find out what that meant, but found out it reminded us nothing more than of downtown Oakville (albeit in a more tropical setting), Starbucks et al. The most interesting thing in Celebration was the alligator sign by the pond. I will say though, that they have a good blend of manicured lawns and indigenous flora. You could do worse than to live there!