Local Information

Tampa is the third-largest city of Floridaand its chief treasure is its diversity. Historic and ultra-modern, even itsbuildings can beautifully recount its tale. The Tampa Theatre showing classic and art house films, for example, isturning eighty years old in 2006, and its architectural style is FloridaMediterranean including touches of Italian, Renaissance, Byzantine, Spanish, Mediterranean, Greek Revival, Baroque, and English Tudor.Yes, it is truly breath-taking.

Tampa is part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan region,most commonly referred to as the Tampa Bay Area. White, sugar sand beaches;boating; jet skiing; sport fishing; parasailing; and succulent seafood underthe sun are some of the things that draw travelers here from around the world,year after year.

A few of Tampa’s landmarks are the Sulphur Springs Water Tower (amysterious one); the Babe Zaharias GolfCourse (a nice golf course in the Forest Hills area and officially aHistorical Landmark); and The Story ofTampa (a public painting by Lynn Ash in the lobby of the Tampa MunicipalOffice Building since 2003). The HistoricalHyde Park is a historical district in South Tampa with top qualityarchitecture. Teenagers would love the world-famous Skatepark of Tampa where professional skateboarders flock to inJanuary for the Tampa Am, and inMarch for Tampa Pro.

The Museumof Science and Industry in Tampa has an IMAX dome theater and there are anumber of places to enjoy live theatre. In the night, it’s must to make a stopat the Ybor City, a National HistoricLandmark District with many many nightclubs, bars, restaurants and otherentertainment venues. Even during the day, Ybor Cityis a pleasure to visit. Here, Cuban sandwiches are hot and crisp, and cigarsare hand-rolled.  There are also manyinteresting galleries and museums such as ArtistsUnlimited; Cigar Museum and Visitor;and the Graphicstudio.

Great places to shop, zoological gardensand aquaria – ask for just about anything and it’s right here in Tampa. Let’s hope yourtrip will be timely and you will witness the diversity of this fabulous city byadding some popular annual event into the bargain!