Cuba, The Columbia, John T. Ringling, and a Mini Circus

We went on a fun weekend adventure with H and B as a celebration of Ollie's and B's May birthdays. First stop--Cuba. Well, a very small piece of Cuba. This tiny "park" that we are standing in front of is actually property of Cuba and is located in Ybor City.

After visiting Cuba we went to dinner at The Columbia--the oldest restaurant in Florida. First thing they gave us was warm, crusty cuban bread. It was hard not to eat the whole thing right away but I wanted to save room for dinner. That didn't stop Joe though. He ate the whole piece plus a cuban sandwich for dinner and then shared guava cheesecake with Ollie. The food was amazing and then we got to see a show as well--Flamenco dancing. The pictures from the restaurant are terrible but I'm posting them anyway. Ollie is not as mad as he looks in the picture below. He was actually having a wonderful time.
The Flamenco dancing was wonderful and so fun to watch. Impossible to photograph though.

We stayed overnight in Tampa and then spent the day Sunday at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. This place was amazing. We got to see Ca d' Zan below--the mansion of John Ringling and his wife Mabel. It was beautiful and so ornate. I took some pictures but they are all blurry (couldn't use a flash) except the one below. That was taken from the balcony upstairs looking down into the living room.



Below is the back of the house that faces the water. Just beautiful.

After touring the house we had some lunch and then toured the Circus Museum, that was fascinating--so much to see.
Then on to the art museum. Again there was no flash photography so no good pictures. This art collection was phenomenal and we had a really good docent who made many of the paintings come to life for us. We have been studying the Renaissance and so it was neat to see so many paintings from that time period.
They also had a Hip Hop art exhibit and you were given an iPod with hip hop music on it to listen to as you toured this exhibit. It was okay if you like modern art and hip hop music. :0)
We almost missed the miniature circus on display but thankfully our tram driver told us about it. This was amazing. I took a few pictures but they just don't do it justice. The detail of this circus is remarkable. It took us at least an hour to see all of it and we were treated to some commentary by the man who created it. He happened to be visiting and giving a tour.

We had a great weekend!