Bicycling is one of our winter Florida pleasures, and the Port Charlotte area has some good bicycle trails. One day we ate lunch in Punta Gorda, just south of Port Charlotte, and bicycled the waterfront trail there. It ran beside the bay for a ways with the north and southbound Tamiami Trail bridges in view.
T
The palm trees lining the trail also added to the pleasure of bicycling here.
Another day – a warmer day – we went to nearby Boca Grande to bicycle and explore the area. We rode to the beach and the lighthouse on the bike trail and stopped to see pelicans on the pilings of an old pier.
And of course we enjoyed seeing the beautiful bougainvillea.throughout Boca Grande.
Near where we parked there were some rather striking trees – Cuban Laurel, a type of ficus – that grow can 50 feet high and and almost as wide.
We saw some more Cuban laurels as we were bicycling and paused for a photo.
We biked back downtown along side the railroad and ate lunch at the Loose Caboose restaurant in the former railroad depot. It was a sunny and pleasant day – a good day for a bike ride.
Venice, north of Port Charlotte, has a number of great bike trails. We parked at the nature center and rode along the Venetian Waterway Trail into Venice.
The downtown is marked by a colorfully planted area with shops and restaurants where we had lunch. The plants and palm trees make it a very pleasant place to eat and linger.
In addition to bicycling, we saw a couple of movies while we were in Port Charlotte, American Sniper and Selma. We also went to the farmer’s market in Englewood where we got several delicious bakery items and a jar of honey. Orchids and other plants were for sale, and a man making paella attracted a number of onlookers..
On a couple of evenings we returned to the RV park as the sun was setting and stopped near the clubhouse to capture the ending of the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment