Taking a dream vacation to a tropical island is the perfect remedy for the winter blues. Who wouldn’t want to lie around on a beach under a palm tree all day sipping margaritas or mojitos? Thousands of vacationers come every year to Key West to soak up the sun, drink on Duval Street, and go fishing or diving. Did you know there’s a whole other world of things to do in Key West as well? Totally land-based? Key West has a little of everything, such as the Ocean, the warm weather, world-class fishing, the coral reef and a totally preserved historical part of town with museums, historic homes, and old military towers and a fort. Even if you spent your whole two weeks of vacation visiting the museums, military structures and historic homes, you would have to come back the following year to see them all because there’s so much to see. Key West is the only one of the Florida Keys with such a well-preserved history.
There have been people on Key West for hundreds of years, and the city itself was established in the early 1800s. Before that, there were Indians and pirates but soon wreckers started using Key West as a base for operations. The US military saw Key West as a crucial defensive base, and a fort was built here. From all this we get a very rich history which is kept alive by the current citizens of Key West.
Part of the military network in Key West, in addition to Fort Zachary, was a tower called West Martello Tower. The tower lies next to Higgs Beach on the south side of Key West, and faces the Atlantic Ocean. Today the brick tower is crumbling because soldiers from the fort used the tower for target practice in the nineteenth century. But it has a crumbling beauty, and if you peer through the old bricks out to sea, you’ll see why. The Key West Garden Club calls the West Martello tower home today, and visitors can walk around for free to see more than 92 plants.
The Key West Cemetery, believe it or not, is really fascinating. It’s pretty old and the gravesites are beautiful and also quite fancy. They’re above ground so each one is built individually, either like a small building or like a sculpture. It’s like taking a stroll through a miniature city made of limestone. It dates back to the 1800s and covers quite a bit of ground. Definitely worth checking out.
If you ever took an American Lit class in school, then you might be interested in Hemingway House. Ernest Hemingway lived in Key West in the 1930s and made a huge impression on the city even to this day. His home is now a musuem and you can take a tour and learn about his crazy life in Key West. He was a large character and Key West is extremely proud that he lived here and wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls.
