Road Trip 6: Finally Mount Dora

Our next stop was Mount Dora, a Florida town we'd had our sights on for a while. But when we've tried to visit in previous years there's always been something to scupper our plans. Most recently an art fair - which they seem to do a lot of - clogging the streets. It's not called "Festival City" for nothing. You could kiss goodbye to parking anywhere. This time we had more luck. In fact Mount Dora more than proved its worth. For starters there was the sort of lunch place I look for in my dreams.

Shaded courtyard, tinkling fountain, decent food - snapper, lobster bisque, the works. We had walked around looking for some little hidden place off the main drag and saw umbrella tops peering over a fence. It was called The Goblin Market. It sounded as if it belonged in one of the tweer parts of Cornwall but it was a very pleasant surprise..
  The town was full of quaint shops.

And after lunch we took in the Modernist  Museum, with an exhibition about Memphis group design - lots of thought-provoking invigorating stuff - bright colours and stark shapes, the sort of furniture  you wouldn't fill your house with (unless you were David Bowie, who'd owned a lot of the objects)  but have just one piece as a feature. Although even that might be too much for hubby. All somehow unexpected in a small town in Florida.

And then..

The "Modernist Museum Shoppe". Something distinctly "only in America" about that one.

If you can find a day without an art fair I'd thoroughly recommend Mount Dora. Here's the view over the Lake.

Called Lake Dora. There's even a lighthouse.

  And then, the next day, we trundled into Golden Beach ...

...sister-in-law dropping me off and heading south to Naples. We love those road trips but at the end you always want to say "If I never see another hotel or restaurant again it'll be too soon." Good to be home.