Great, small town. Wonderful place to mail out your Christmas cards and letters. The historic fort…read moreis a great look back in time.

Christmas, Florida is a small community located east of Orlando. When I first moved to the Orlando…read moreback in 2001, Christmas, Florida was the place to head towards to mail your Christmas cards. How cool to get a Christmas card postmarked from Christmas? I guess the coolness factor can be argued. However, that is what everyone told me when I moved here. Christmas is still pretty much a rural community. That is saying something as expansion continues throughout florida, especially here in the Orlando area. The name of Christmas comes from Fort Christmas, which csn trace its roots to December 25, 1837, when two thousand United States Army soldiers and Alabama Volunteers arrived in the area to construct a fort, which they appropriately named Fort Christmas. This particular fort was one of over two hundred forts built during the Second Seminole War. Christmas, Florida is a cool enough place. Honestly, you will more than likely pass through more than you will stop here, but I am glad that I have gotten to know Christmas, Florida.

Nice little piece of public art at the University of Central Florida (UCF)…read more It is an interesting piece of art forged out of metal. I am a huge supporter of public art. It is these pieces of art that gives a community (and a university is definitely a community) its personality and it is these pieces of art that will linger in your memories and will surface here and there and you will embrace these memories warmly.

This is a cool piece of art on the UCF campus between the theater and music buildings. Purchased in…read more2012, with funds from Florida's Art in State Building Program, Cyclorama is a series of four sculptures made out of red powder coated steel by artists Blessing Hancock and Joe O'Connell. According to the artists " Our goal is to give people new inspiration in their daily encounter. We create interactive art work that solves problems, enriches the human experience, and creates an atmosphere of participation, curiosity, and connection to the community." If you look closely at the sculptures you can see different story elements cut out of the steel. Some of the characters I recognized were the headless horseman, aliens, a clown, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Greek myths. Unlike a lot of art you aren't supposed to touch, these pieces are designed to be sat on and serve as a place people can gather. It is a kind of stage for the UCF students. At night it is lit in LED lights casting shadows through the figures cut in the steel. Cyclorama is listed as number 3 on the list of 9 Best Places to Study on UCF Campus by UCF today. It was an interesting find on a recent visit. Art you can sit ion? Now that's something I can get behind. LOL

Definitely for toddlers, this is a nice addition to this community. There is also a small dog park.read more

Chuluota, Florida is a small town in Seminole County, Florida. It is east of Orlando and despite…read morethe incredible growth of Orlando in the last few decades, Chuluota still manages to retain its small town charm, though with the insane growth of the once small Oviedo, I winder if that will be the case for much longer with Chuluota. Still, we cannot try to predict what will be. This is a great place to embrace a small town feel while being close to a city.

Located on SR 520, Wedgefield is a community that was developed to meet the needs of both Orlando…read moreand the Space Coast and comfortably sits midway between the two. It is a nice enough community, though a bit isolated. There are two gas stations here and a Family Dollar, but the closest supermarket is a Publix probably about fifteen minutes away and the same can be said for any restaurant (other than the one at the Wedgefield Country Club). For shopping, you have to go to either Orlando or Titusville. All in all, this is still a good community.

We always order pizza and garlic knots from Papa Gios when we are in Orlando. They do get busy but…read moretotally worth the wait.

I'm done. 3rd or 4th pizza this year but quality has consistently gone down. Maybe yours will have…read moremore toppings than mine below. You be the judge.

Mangia moved since my last review and it's better than ever. They're on the southern end of Avalon…read morePark and they serve up some amazing Italian cuisine. Still 5 stars since I can't bump it up another notch. They have their staples like Chicken Parm, Lasagna, Bolognese, Shrimp Fry Diavolo, Puttanesca , Piccata, Gnocchi, and a variety of delicious pizzas and appetizers. There are too many to name. This restaurant can stand on their own with their standards. Where they stand out is with their specials. The chef here is always innovating and trying some new dishes. I wish I could get a notification of what's on the menu each night. I've had some amazing surprises with the taste and presentation of these dishes. And when they have wedding soup (Christmas time), I definitely make sure I go. I feel like part of the family when I go here. They always recognize us and some of the staff even resembles member of my extended Italian family. They cook better than my Italian grandma (shhhh, don't tell her). They also just opened a sister restaurant (Amalfi) down the block so they're taking over Avalon Park! I've been here a lot and plan on going a lot more. Some of the best Italian food in Orlando! So glad it's close to my house!

Very beautiful food I would say the best Italian in Florida. Everything had very balanced flavour…read more We started with a aperol spritz and wine and they brought the house bread which was delicious just like their pizza. Our appetiser was a carpaccio which was very refreshing and delicious. The server Madison recommended the lobster ravioli which was a very pleasant dish slightly sweet and rich a beautiful mix. The spaghetti meatballs also exquisite even for a simple dish, the meatballs not really extremely tender but they were still delicious. Overall the service and food were 10/10 especially our server Madison who's been there since the beginning and gave us A+ hospitality.

Want to spend 3 hours on a guided stroll down Park Ave stopping in restaurants, shops and learning…read moreabout some history? Check this out! Nice for locals and visitors. Having seen a lot of post cards for this event around Park Ave, we decided to give it a try this past weekend. We went with the Saturday tour and unfortunately, we were interrupted with some rain during our tour so we didn't get the full history and stroll that usually is part of it. Bummed but we didn't let it stop us from having a good time. Reid was our guide for the day and also a founder of this Food Tour. He was fun and very lighthearted throughout our experience. I do feel that since there was rain we missed most of what the tour was trying to accomplish, which was to give us a history lesson as well. I do have to say, I didn't learn much but since we were scurrying to each location, I know it was difficult. They do warn you of the rain, I mean, hello! It's Florida! So they recommend bringing an umbrella! Do yourself a favor and do that if there is more than 30% chance! You will be glad you did. For a $47 price tag, check out the stops we headed to and keep in mind, they are the same stops for each tour but they will be adding a new tour of the other end of Park Ave in the next few months. This is a tour of 6 businesses which consist of: Prato Ancient Olive The Spice & Tea Exchange Orchid Thai Cuisine Kilwin's Sassafras Sweet Shoppe Prato I have been various times so I already knew it was going to be a great kick-off to the tour. When you booked, there were an option of Wine or Beer. I went for the wine and a red wine was waiting as we were seated at the table. We tried 2 of their pizzas and had their house bread as well. It was lovely as you really can't have a bad experience in Prato. However, I think this would have been a great opportunity for someone from Prato to chat about their business but Reid did a pretty good rundown. Ancient Olive By far, Ancient Olive took the cake for being the highlight of the tour. WOW! Not only does this shop rock in it's own right, they know how to host a tour of people who love food and want a taste of local. We had someone from Ancient Olive walk us through an Olive Oil & Balsamic tasting, think Wine tasting but with Olive Oil & Balsamic. They also had some tapenade and a goat cheese spread with balsamic and almonds to snack on. They carry a local all-natural beverage mixer as well, Bungalow23 and we had the Prickly Pear. Just when we thought we were already in heaven, another door opened: Ice Cream with Olive Oil and salt... OMGGGGG... I could have stopped the tour here and taken a bath in this. You are not supposed to shop on this tour but it was raining and I spent almost $70 here. Such a great stop. The Spice & Tea Exchange They have so many teas, salts, spices and peppers than you could ever imagine. The best part is they have kick-a recipes to use and we tasted two of them on this stop. Beer cheese dip and an orzo pasta. The pasta was delicious! We also had one of their cold brew teas. Lovely stop. I did feel a little rushed from here on out but that may have been because the rain kept us at the 2nd stop for a long time. Orchid Thai Cuisine I have been here and unfortunately, everything we tasted, chicken satay and their appetizer platter was everything I have had here before. Didn't get much of a new experience here and didn't really learn anything about the business except they have been there for 6 years. Kilwin's My least fav stop on the tour. Not sure why we went with Kilwin's since it's not local. When we arrive, we really didn't learn anything about the business and no one from there interacted with us. We had a taste of the Winter Park Mud, vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips and carmel. It was good but the ice cream wasn't very smooth, it was more crystalized. I am not into fudge so I gave mine away. It was the turtle fudge. Sassafras Sweet Shoppe I adore this store so I was excited to see this on the stop. However, we only spent about 2 minutes in here and grabbed cotton candy and went and ate it under an awning outside and were sent on our way. A very abrupt ending but it was still raining out so I guess we couldn't expect too much. Overall, wasn't blown away but I did it with 2 friends and the others that were on the tour were fun as well. It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon even if the stops and content didn't blow me away.

Good food, new friends, perfect weather. What more could you want on a Saturday afternoon?…read more We had a great tour of Winter Park with Kiel. He's very knowledgable about the area and locations where we made stops. We also had great service at each of our stops, as Kiel is on a first name basis with everyone on Park Ave. I highly recommend this tour for out of town guests or if you'd just like to get to know your neighborhood a little bit better.

I highly recommend Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurant especially if you enjoy wine! One tip I always…read moregive people is to make reservations, as it can get pretty busy. The good thing is there's plenty of free parking, which makes visiting super convenient. I'm a Wine Club member, which is definitely worth it if you go often. Members receive two bottles of wine and two tastings each month, and there are three different membership tiers depending on how much wine you want. The club also comes with a lot of extra perks, which makes the experience even better. My coworker and I recently decided to go for happy hour (Monday-Friday from 3:00-5:30 PM). Since we're both wine club members, we wanted to do our wine tasting before our dinner reservation. I definitely recommend getting there earlier in the afternoon if you plan to taste. We arrived around 2 PM, and the tasting area wasn't packed yet, which made the experience much more enjoyable. If you plan to do the tasting, I suggest setting aside about an hour so you can really enjoy it without feeling rushed. After our tasting, we headed to our table for our reservation and ordered a few items from the happy hour menu while continuing the wine fun. One thing we learned for next time: the sangria flight during happy hour is only $17, and it's perfect for sharing especially after you've already done a full tasting! Overall, Cooper's Hawk is a great spot for gatherings, date nights, or even meeting up with coworkers for happy hour. The atmosphere is lively, the wine selection is great, and the wine club perks make the experience even more fun.

For my last 2 visits, everything was just peachy. Very apropos, since a wine tasting with masterful…read moreAndrew led my group to trying Vivanté peach (non-alcoholic) mixed with CH Lux Ice Wine. Reminiscent of peach gummi candy, just as suggested. Bottles were redeemed (from membership) as a result. Andrew is simply the best! Appetizers that are always pleasing: Over the Border Eggrolls and 4 Cheese Truffle Arancini (Wine O'Clock Menu). Biting into these is a slice of heaven.