Simon Calder's Orlando Report
Verzonden op
27.03.07
Gravity: the world's theme park capital is built to defy it. Orlando boasts some of the finest rides on the planet. They generate the biggest thrills when visitors are swirled, twisted and catapulted in stomach-churning manoeuvres that flout the pull of the earth. Central Florida can provide wall-to-wall, ride-to-ride, high-energy excitement. Yet Orlando also has historic, gentle and sophisticated dimensions that far too many visitors overlook.
Check out the other side of the city, and you discover that gravity is a convenient force that keeps your feet on the ground - and helps you discover a fascinating area. Once you get off the freeway and into the heart of Orlando, you discover that it is a place that manages to be both thriving and relaxed.
Walk south along Orange Avenue, the city's main artery, to appreciate some fine 19th-century and Art Deco architecture. Orlando is unusual in having its very own city-center lake. Lake Eola is a graceful expanse of water that serves to inject some serenity - just what you need after a day at Universal or the Magic Kingdom.
Water is key to the Orlando that most visitors miss. The region's very first tourist attraction was a simple boat trip - which survives to this day. At the eastern end of Morse Boulevard in the beautiful suburb of Winter Park, you'll find the jetty for a fascinating trip of Orlando's lake district ( www.scenicboattours.com , daily on the hour from 10am-4pm). You can spend an intriguing hour cruising along creeks and across lakes, seeing some beautiful (and expensive) homes. If these clapperboard mansions look strangely familiar, and remind you of communities much further north, that's because many New Englanders settled here towards the end of the 19th century, drawn in by cheap land and the expanding railroad. Winter Park still has its own station, with daily trains to and from New York.
Simon Calder is a presenter on the BBC's Holiday program. In addition, he is travel editor of The Independent newspaper, and contributing editor for Conde Nast Traveller magazine (UK). He also writes travel books, on subjects ranging from destinations such as Amsterdam and Cuba to the business of low-cost aviation. Simon lives in London with his wife and their two daughters, and a bad case of jet lag.
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