Terrific Tampa

Museums, Busch Gardens and Lowry Park Zoo:This Florida city by the bay has fun for all ages.

The thriving port and business center are part of the big Tampa Bay area.
The thriving port and business center are part of the big Tampa Bay area.

— When the Republicans convened in Tampa, two outcomes were assured. Romney would head the ticket, but Tampa also emerged a winner.

The thriving port and business hub of the big Tampa Bay area, Tampa is home to some of the state’s best restaurants and most interesting attractions, especially for families. It also has a colorful Cuban heritage.

Each of the main attractions could easily occupy a full day. In fact, you could spend many a day at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, which is actually two parks in one. A pioneer among theme parks, Busch Gardens opened in 1959. It boasts six scream-guaranteed roller coasters, more than any other park in Florida. The newest, Cheetah Hunt, delivers breathtaking plunges and launches at speeds pushing 60 mph.

There are many other rides, but what really sets this park apart are the animals, some 2,000 of them, in natural habitats. Elephants, rhinos, zebras and giraffes are among the residents of the 65-acre Serengeti Plains, which can be seen by mini-train, sky ride or on foot.

In other areas, gorillas, chimps and great apes are at home in a rainforest setting, while the Myombe Reserve is home to 500 multicolored tropical birds. Jungala is a three-story playland where tigers and orangutans live among towering trees and flowing waterways. Climbing nets, mazes and exploration tunnels challenge visitors and a zip line provides a ride above it all.

Fish tales abound at the excellent Florida Aquarium. The Coral Reefs tank is the showstopper exhibit, a mammoth coral grotto where more than 2,300 fish are on the move. Bays and Beaches shows off sea life along the coast, such as spiny lobsters, stingrays and a 350-pound grouper. My favorites here are the adorable sea horses that come in a surprising number of varieties.

A Wetlands exhibit explores Florida’s freshwater creatures like otters, spoonbills, gators and snakes and Ocean Commotion offers predators, including sharks, a giant Pacific octopus and lionfish. Shows go on every 30 minutes featuring coral reef divers, otters at play, stingray feedings and a penguin promenade. If kids get restless, Explore a Shore awaits, a two acre outdoor water adventure zone where children can cool off while parents relax in the shade. Waves, slippery slides and gushing geysers are just a few of the attractions for the kids.

Lowry Park Zoo was picked by Parents Magazine as the country’s best zoo for families. While it is a major zoo with 2,000 animals on 56 lush acres, friendly Lowry is less intimidating for young ones than Busch Gardens, allowing for lots of close-up encounters such as llama and camel rides and animal feeding, including a platform to reach the giraffes. Visitors can watch manatees swimming underwater from a special viewing area.

The animals are divided into six sections that include Asia, Africa and native Florida. The zoo also offers water play areas, educational shows and ecotours for wildlife watching on the scenic Hillsborough River.

Tampa’s massive Museum of Science and Industry is a scientific playground for all ages, with some 450 hands-on exhibits. Visitors can experience the impact of hurricane winds or ride a high wire bike on a cable suspended 30 feet above the ground (not to worry - riders are safely strapped in). The 65-acre complex includes a planetarium and Kids in Charge, a separate interactive center for young children that is the country’s largest of its kind.

Tampa, with a population of 335,709 according to the 2010 census, wasn’t always a metropolis. It began life as a cigar manufacturing center, based in the neighborhood named Ybor City for Don Vicente Martinez Ybor, who moved his cigar-making business here in 1886. The area became the most vibrant Cuban community in America and today is one of Florida’s few Historic Districts.

Though the industry waned after the embargo on Cuban tobacco in the 1960s, Ybor City remains a colorful neighborhood and cigar makers are still at work hand rolling tobacco in several shops along Seventh Avenue, the main street. Seventh Avenue is lined with bars and clubs with music at night. On Friday nights, cars are banned and young promenaders crowd the avenue.

The Ybor City Museum State Park tells the story of the past with exhibits in a 1920s-era brick bakery building, a Mediterranean style garden and a “casita,” representative of a typical cigar-worker’s family home. A master cigar maker here demonstrates the entire cigar-making process. The museum also leads neighborhood walking tours every Saturday at 10:30 a.m.

Bound on one side by Tampa Bay, the other by the Hillsborough River opening into Hillsborough Bay, Tampa has taken full advantage of its extensive waterfront. Two of the city’s newest attractions, the striking Tampa Museum of Art and the Glazer Children’s Museum, are side by side in Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park on Tampa’s Riverwalk, a growing promenade of parks and a walkway beside the Hillsborough River. For savoring the sunshine, Riverwalk is rivaled by Bayshore Boulevard on the river’s west shore, a seven mile promenade for walkers and bikers advertised as “the world’s longest sidewalk.” Wilderness is only a few miles away from the city. Several companies offer guided paddling on the Hillsborough River north of town to see ’gators, great blue herons and other Florida natives.

Tampa offers plenty of action for sports fans with major league entries for baseball, football and hockey. Steinbrenner Field, the spring training home of the New York Yankees, is a big attraction even when the minor league Tampa Yankees take over in summer. Shoppers should sample Tampa’s International Plaza adjacent to the airport, an upscale mall with 200 retailers. The city’s “SoHo,” the area around South Howard Street, is a lively center for dining and nightlife. Whatever your pleasure, it isn’t far away.

Must have a beach? St. Petersburg and Clearwater are each a 30-minute drive. But it’s doubtful there will be time with all the things to see and do in Tampa

Travel, Pages 53 on 09/30/2012

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