Miami Beach!

We took a long week-end getaway trip to Miami Beach for Memorial Day to have a little break after a particularly stressful spring and also hopefully as a last hurray before hopefully I'm pregnant.

We got a nice package deal that include a rental car, but after a traffic jam between the airport and our hotel, crazy road closures in Miami Beach that made getting to our hot difficult, and a very expensive parking charge at our hotel we thought maybe it was more trouble than it was worth. So the first day we returned it to a place within walking distance of our hotel.

Here was the ride in - notice the "Welcome to Miami" sign!

Here is our hotel as well as views from our balcony towards the Atlantic and from the elevator lobby across Miami Beach towards Miami proper.

We slept a little later each morning, had breakfast, and then spent a few hours on the beach. The hotel had nice padded chairs for guests, and we rented an umbrella each day. They brought us free towels, water, and fruit and had guys coming around from which you could order additional food and drinks. The water was incredibly warm and clear and we swam and sat and swam and sat a few times each day.

There is a very touristy shopping and restaurant street called Lincoln Road that was very near our hotel and we spent a lot of time walking and eating there. Here is the imfamous sunburn photo (I promise it was never as bad as this picture makes it look, as you can see in the other pictures. There was also a really cool tree on this street we admired each day.

There was another, shorter pedestrian street with restaurants where we had dinner another night. It was very pretty with lights in the trees and lots of cafe tables on the sidewalks.

There were a couple specific places we remembered from when we were in Miami with our friends Goran and Dijana a few years ago for New Years - including a Nespresso coffee shop and an ice cream parlor called Paul.

Finally, on the last night we rented bikes and took a ride along the lovely esplanade along the coast. Its been awhile since I've been on a bike, but it was really fun.