Fort Lauderdale Photos V

[Karl-G]

Hotels, motels, restaurants, and stores in Fort Lauderdale. If you are thinking about visiting Fort Lauderdale to enjoy the stripper clubs and the many escorts, who can be found most easily in the pages of "Hotspots" or from one of the agencies listed in "Hotspots" (which is on-line), where do you stay and eat?

 

Fort Lauderdale's primary source of income is tourism, and the city handles large numbers of tourists with great facility. The attractive, efficient, and not-too-large airport is only ten minutes from downtown. The city looks all year like a tropical paradise with palm trees and brilliantly colored flowers everywhere, in January as well as July. There are hundreds of hotels and motels in every size and price category. Here are photos of six properties, in three categories, just to give a slight idea of the possibilities. There are many, many motels of 12-100 units all along Ocean Boulevard (= Highway A1A ), which means one block from the ocean. These are the traditional accommodations in Fort Lauderdale and very moderate in price. (I would not go further north than 4100 or it becomes time consuming.) Here are the Day's Inn and Polynesian Village; they all have pools and complimentary breakfasts. Then all the major hotel chains in America now have one or more properties in town: Hilton, Sheraton, Radisson, Ramada, Holiday Inn, Doubletree Guest Suites, etc. The latter two have a very nice location: Holiday Inn at Sunrise is right across from the beach, and Double Tree is three blocks west on Sunrise, right across from the Galleria Mall. My actual recommendation would be to stay in one of the 30+ gay guest houses, small motels (12-60 units) which have been renovated and beautifully landscaped. They all have private courtyards with pools and they are clothing optional. I have pictures of the Grand Resort exterior and Windamar pool, Worthington exterior and Worthington pool, which is perhaps the nicest of all now. There are complimentary breakfasts by the pool and complimentary cocktail hours at least on Friday and Saturday in all of them. You always meet interesting people, there are never screaming children, and you will find dinner companions or bar friends if you are at all interested - you do not have to be hesitant about coming alone. Parking of course is free, which is very valuable, since parking by the beach is very difficult. The gay guesthouses up on Terramar, Rio Mar, Vistamar and that area have a very good location just two blocks from the beach. (Also The Flamingo, Saint Sebastian, Royal Palms, Villa Venice, Elysium, Chesnutt House, Orton Terrace, etc.)

 

You can do lots of enjoyable shopping in Fort Lauderdale. Las Olas Boulevard Shops offer considerable variety, and the Galleria Mall at Sunrise and the Intracoastal has Saks, Nieman Marcus, Burdines, and dozens of smaller specialty shops. Across the street is Borders Books and a few blocks north is Barnes and Noble. You can rent a bicycle, a motor scooter, or roller blades, or get a tattoo, or find unusual food items from Latin America in specialty shops.

 

Fort Lauderdale is incredibly rich in restaurants, because of all the peoples from around the world who have been immigrating here. The restaurants are all good and most are very moderately priced. Here are pictures of a dozen in a small area on the N.E. side. Mandarin Chinese, Casa d'Angelo Italian, Martorano's Italian, Bombay Indian, Pan e Dolci (a superb Italian bakery and gelato shop and deli), Thai, Tipico Spanish American, Punta del Este Cuban-American, French, Greek Islands, Il Mulino (very fine Italian family style), and Vico's Italian Family Restaurant (a little more expensive but wonderful). The problem will be too many choices.

 

But if you would like to recharge your psychological and spiritual and sexual batteries during the winter, Fort Lauderdale just can't be beat - sun and warmth and color guaranteed, boys galore on the beach and in the bars and beds, lots of shops for looking and buying, and delightful restaurants all over.

 

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[+ Hoover42]

Karl,

 

Thanks again for the wonderful photos. The photos are well framed and well lighted, and the color is just amazing.

 

There is also an eerie, sterile quality about them. As though we are seeing Fort Lauderdale after some overwhelming force eliminated the population but the left the surroundings unscathed.

 

Is this the sort of look you are after?

 

...Hoover

[Karl-G]

No, I was not aiming for that feeling, but I know what you mean. There are two particular technical problems. The first is that the sun is almost directly overhead here all summer long, and so getting the sun to shine on the front of something, or at an angle, which gives the best results, is very difficult. Secondly, I wanted to get pictures without lots of cars in front of everything. To do that I either went out early in the mornings or on Sundays. But the result is that there is not much going on and that eerie sterile quality. Some places I shot two or three times, in early morning and also later with traffic, etc. Having much of the image covered with cars was even less attractive. Also I just did this for the fun of it, so I was not going to spend large amounts of time waiting for the perfect shot.

 

Thanks for the reaction.