Spring Fling 2011 - Day 9

The major event of this day was a trip to the other side of Tampa Bay and over to the coast to the town of Tarpon Springs.  We finally got going in the latter part of the morning and didn't return until the evening.  The day was bright and sunny, but breezy, and once at the coast cool enough to make wearing a jacket or fleece wise.

The old city of Tarpon Springs is centered around the sponge fishing industry, and similar to the U.P. which was largely populated by Cornishmen & other north European miners, was started by Greek sponge fishermen.  It is now a tourist haven (trap?) with two dominant themes, sponges and Greeks.  It is still a center for sponge fishing as most of the shops can attest, and it is also hugely into Greek food of all kinds.

With strategic pacing and resting Peter was able to walk further this day than he apparently has been able to do for months.  We absorbed sponge knowledge and history (I had never realized how ignorant I was on the subject) and wandered about the touristy/marina part of town.  We had lunch at a restaurant that claims it is scheduled to be part of a Food Network show in a couple of months, and it was good.  We took a look at, and into, a number of the shops (which didn't seem to be quite as tacky, by and large, as one might expect) but beyond a bakery to get a dessert treat (Kok or baclava) and a couple of sponges for P&J temptation was largely resisted, except for a couple of different specialty soap shops (sorry, Carol!).

We eventually left and managed, with some judicial map reading, to fake out their Garmin enough to route us back across the causeway dividing inner Tampa Bay instead of the inland route we were guided to use on our outbound journey.  All in all it was a very nice and interesting day, enjoyed equally by P&J who until having the excuse of a visitor to make the effort to go there hadn't actually been back for some 10 years!

A large number of pictures were taken between us, and shared in the evening, and some of them have been uploaded to Flickr and may be found here.