Day 44 and 45 Mount Dora, Florida

The drive through horse country of Ocala to Mount Dora in central Florida was impressive for the magnificent horse ranches that consume the countryside. We arrived at our friends Toni and John's house mid afternoon and after catching up on things they drove us around and showed us the area. We got a bit thirsty so we stopped for a refreshment in downtown Mount Dora at "1921 by Norman Van Aken" who's a Florida artist that decided to open a restaurant to display various works of art. It's a beautiful place where we had a few drinks and ate some very good food before heading back to their house for the evening.

Mount Dora is charming little lakeside town with interesting shops and restaurants that's a lot of fun to just walk around in. I'm not sure it's exactly on a mountain, but if you start at the lake and walk towards the center of town you can almost tell you're walking uphill. At it's highest point it's 185 feet above sea level, and for Florida, that's a mountain. We really enjoyed the evening.

The next day we spent more time walking around town with a brief stop at One Flight Up for a glass of wine. A very pleasant waiter named Michael from Maryland took care of us and described some of the more interesting events going on around town. For dinner we went back to town and stopped first at Pisces Rising for Happy Hour, then at Goblin Market Restaurant for dinner. Sylvia had Rainbow Trout and I had Chicken Paprikash with Nokedli. It was fabulous. There seems to be an abundance of good restaurants in Mount Dora and we'd love to get back here.

It was a great visit with Toni and John with fun conversation and lots of good eats...and drinks. They were excellent hosts. Tomorrow we go to St. Augustine Beach for two days.

Hiking Up Mount Dora