St Petersburg is situated on Florida’s gulf coast and part of the Tampa Bay Area. It’s wonderful weather attracts tourists year round to its parks, galleries and waterways.
We travelled to St Pete in 2018 for Danielle’s (hot wife) birthday. It’s definitely a city worth visiting!
The Hollander Hotel
We stayed at the Hollander Hotel which is somewhere between a boutique hotel and a pub. The rooms are great with comfy beds as well as a restaurant and bar downstairs. There is also a courtyard with a bar and pool which is open to the public.
It can get a bit crazy in the heat of summer. It kind of reminded me of some backpacker hostels I’ve stayed in back in Australia but you’d get your own room.
Foreshore
On Saturday morning we got up early and went for a run down to the foreshore. This area of St Petersburg is particularly charming with wide open parkland spread with green grass, a perfect match for the blue sky. There are plenty of pathways that stretch along the water front, ideal for jogging or walking the dog.
After a run we were famished but lucky the Hollander does a great breakfast buffet, complete with omelette chef who will cook it to your liking.
Dali Museum
St Pete has an artsy vibe so naturally we wanted to see what all the fuss was about. We headed to The Dali Museum – home to numerous works by Salvador Dali. The building is incredible, set amidst gardens and views of Tampa Bay.
Sadly we were disappointed by the content within. Dali was famous for his melting clocks in his work the Persistence Of Memory – but we didn’t see any of that (it’s actually in New York). There were certainly some interesting pieces of surrealist work – but most were not my cup of tea. We thought it was interesting enough to learn about Dali but probably overpriced.
Beaches
In the afternoon we attempted to head down to check out some of St Pete’s beaches. Unfortunately, there was a ton of traffic and it was impossible to find a parking spot so we gave up and went back to enjoy some drinks by the pool at the Hollander. Unfortunately there were so many people there that the pool was more like human soup on a hot Saturday afternoon. We did make it up to Siesta Key Beach in Clearwater the next day, which was a good hours drive North but a beautiful sandy beach.
Dining in St Petersburg
We ventured back toward the foreshore in the evening to dine at the Birch & Vine. We had actually planned on eating at the Canopy which is their rooftop bar that looks over the bay, but on. Saturday night, it is a drinks rather than dining spot. Back downstairs we enjoyed a delicious meal.
Vegan Breakfast
Sadly our car was having some issues on Sunday morning. While I tended to that with the mechanic, Danielle managed to find a vegan cafe somewhere downtown where she enjoyed a scrumptious breakfast. We’re pretty sure it was Meze 119.
Ice Cream
You simply can’t survive the August Floridian heat without ice cream! We just so happened to stumble across Iceburg Rolled Ice cream and frozen yoghurt. Rolled ice cream? I’d never had it before. The pour some sweet creamy substance onto a very cold metal plate to form a frozen layer. They then peel this layer off the plate in rolls – a bit like how you might make decorative chocolate rolls for a cake. It was delicious!
A Tour On The Town
We ended our time in St Pete the way we wish we had begun, on a tourist bus. For less than $2 the bus will take you past all the main points of interest in town and shows what points of interest you should visit.
This would definitely have been helpful to do on our first day in town to help us decide where to spend our time.
We would love to go back to St Pete and explore some more! The atmosphere and the food were amazing. Our time there was a little dampened with some car issues, but in all I definitely would line to go back!
