Somebody once said it was location location location. The locals like to call themselves Conch Republicans claiming to have succeeded from the United States in 1982. For everyone else they live in Key West, a throw back from less pressured times, like nothing else in the United States. Anyhow it is the cause for a week long party every year. Key West has always been a freedom loving, would be paradise since the early 1800”s when the Caribbean pirates used the island as a place to escape after plundering the shipping lanes. In fact it is no longer an island but the end of a series of archipelagos now connected by 42 bridges to the mainland proper, 120 miles away, and called US Highway 1. It is the nearest point in the US to Cuba and the most southern city in the United States. Today it is a classic tourist resort, perhaps not as raucous as in the past, but nevertheless a splendid location to spend a day, or a week.
Getting to Key West is both easy and difficult. The hard way is to drive. From Miami it is 160 miles, along the same route as the famous Flagler Over-Sea Railway. Unfortunately that fell down during the Labour Day hurricane of 1935. It is a good four hours by road with overtaking very restricted and speed limits harshly enforced. A wonderful drive through the State parks of Southern Florida through Key Largo, waterside resort areas and plentiful supplies of food and accommodation. But not on if time is a restriction. Air travel is the alternative, commuter services offered from Miami International, but much more fun is the Cape Air operation from Fort Lauderdale (and from Naples and Fort Myers too). Transport is a ubiquitous Cessna 402 twin (see left), a single pilot operation with a chance to bag the co-pilots seat for those with initiative. At 3000 ft and 180 mph the view for the other eight passengers is just as good. No hand luggage. That goes in an over-wing locker. And everything, including you, is weighed at check-in. Cape Air and sister company Nantucket Airlines go back to 1989, now with a fleet of over 50 402s, offering 850 flights a day during the peak summer season and carrying 560,000 passengers in 2003. It is the largest independent regional airline in the United States also operating service in New England and in the Caribbean.
There have been many famous residents of Key West, non more so than Ernest Hemmingway who held a rollicking tenure, with his pals, from the late nineteen twenties until divorce and then Cuba attracted him away a decade later. Some of his most famous works were produced in his house on Whitehead Street Hemingway's personal touches still abounding throughout the property many of the unique unique furnishings and European antiques collected during his Paris sojourn. The trophy mounts and skins are souvenirs of Hemingway's African safaris and numerous hunting expeditions out west. The Old Man and the Sea in some ways epitomises Key West and its Caribbean background.
Perhaps one of the most interesting buildings in Key West is the ”Little White House” (left), once very much ”off limits” within the vast areas of the naval base, but now a very popular tourist attraction, in a quiet residential area, surprisingly very close to the busy centre of the island. Harry S Truman (1884-1972) was the 33rd president of the United States of America. He succeeded to that most challenging of all positions with the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on April 12, 1945. Surprising many Truman proved to be as great a president as his predecessor his tenure including the dropping of the first Atom bomb, the Berlin Airlift, the creation of NATO and the Korean War. In 1946, during a brief vacation, he took a fancy to the building originally constructed as officers” quarters half a century earlier and a one-time home of Thomas Edison. Maybe it was the wooden duplex but more likely the location, allowing the president to really get away from it all, 175 days during his two full terms. The ”Little White House” has rubbed of on other incumbents of the highest office, Eisenhower resident in 1956 after a heart attack and John F Kennedy welcoming Harold Macmillan 1971. Jimmy Carter has been a regular visitor both in and out of office and, perhaps giving an indication of future aspirations, Colin Powell has welcomed the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in recent times. Tours take about one hour and are an interesting diversion into an era within living memory.
Key West is vibrant holiday destination catering for a wide audience; for the nightlife addicts, those who like the beach escape, the sailing and fishing fraternity and with plenty to interest those who enjoy history such as Fort Jefferson (see left). It is a tight little island with numerous eating-places, guesthouses by the score, and also chain hotels in the more remote spots. Key to life is water sports, an alternative a trip on the schooner Western Union, the last tall ship to be built in Key West and now given over to the leisure industry. It is an experience moving at 12 knots under full sail, drink in one hand and food in the other. The dusk patrol is particularly inspiring if you can judge the right day. http://www.fla-keys.com/keywesthttp://www.flycapeair.com
ON TOUR EXTRA: ”Never-Lost”. A Great Name for a Great Product
First the good news. If you are going on holiday Stateside this summer the Hertz ”Never - Lost” in car navigation system is available for as little as $9 (say five pounds) a day. Now the bad news. It”s not offered in the UK and the competing systems seen on this side of the water, so far, have not been nearly as good.
If your future travel plans include hiring a car in the US don”t hesitate in going to Hertz and specifying the ”Never-lost” gps-based system. Developed over the last ten years by software experts Magellan, it relieves drivers (and their co-pilots) of any strain in finding the way around on unfamiliar roads particularly when you are on the ”wrong” side of the road. The system is guaranteed to save marriages and long time friendships and comes into its own downtown, and with complicated freeway intersections. It could not be easier to use, bleeping when you arrive at the actual turning and not only offering accurate address”s but picking out the nearest petrol (gas) station, hotel, ATM and restaurant if that is what you request. If you go wrong it re-calculates the route within seconds. Are there any drawbacks? Yes. Hertz fit it as a clip-on or handheld device rather than a screen fixture and so it is best used by a companion. Otherwise its rather like operating an (illegal) mobile phone in the car. One hand on the phone and one hand on the steering wheel. But easy.
http://www.hertz.com