Tarpon Springs

We took advantage of a relaxing day and hung out in the room at the Wyndham Garden Fort Myers Beach until after 8 am.  I went to the lobby to print our boarding passes for Thursday while Mary finished packing.  The Wyndham was a good choice for us since Fort Myers Beach is well situated for access to many of the places we planned to visit.  It didn’t hurt that we got the room free for the week using some of our points.

We drove north across the Tampa Bay Bridge on I-275 up to Tarpon Springs.  The area is well known for the sponge divers of Greek ancestry who dive for bath sponges.  While there is still a great deal of sponge diving, the town of Tarpon Springs is mostly a kitschy tourist trap.  There are many gift and T-shirt shops along the strand that is the sponge dock.  There are also a number of well rated Greek restaurants.  According to Trip Advisor the best is Hellas Greek Restaurant.  We were very impressed with the service and appearance of the restaurant.  Mary had the combination platter that included a gyro, moussaka, pastitsio and dolmades.  I had a combo that included a Spanakopita and a Tiropita. We both had some great Greek style green beans, rice and a seasoned wedge of boiled potato.  We swapped half of each other’s meals and enjoyed everything.  Although the restaurant had an excellent Greek bakery, we couldn’t think about another bite so we browsed the offerings and moved on.  Other than our usual lunch of peanut butter and crackers and our cold cereal breakfasts, this our only meal of the trip that didn’t swim or crawl in the ocean.

We walked around Dodecanese Street and the wharf for an hour or so looking in at the shops, museums, displays and other attractions.  Many places had locally collected sponges and shells for sale but we weren’t interested in anything.  We picked up a brochure on some of the cruises that go out of Tarpon Springs for wildlife viewing and dolphin viewing.  Although we weren’t interested in a boat ride for this trip we thought it might be something that would interest Ian and Emily when they are in the area this spring.  Since the boats go into some of the rivers and estuaries they are likely to see some many shore birds.  The boats also go into the Gulf of Mexico they typically see dolphins. 

Since we were both tired after a very active week of sightseeing and travel, we decided to make our way to the Ramada Clearwater Airport and crash for a bit.  The hotel is just a stone’s throw from the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Airport (PIE) which will be great for our early flight back home tomorrow morning.  The room was fine, fairly typical of airport hotels.  There was a microwave and refrigerator as well as a large bed.  Since we were just a few yards from the airport, we could hear the jets landing and taking off but that ended after about 7 pm and the room was quiet. 

We spent most of the afternoon relaxing in the room. Around 7 pm we made a run to a nearby Publix to get breakfast and to top off the gas tank of the rental Toyota Corolla before we returned it to Enterprise on Thursday morning.  We had put nearly 2000 miles on the car this week and we were both very happy with the car’s performance and fuel economy.