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

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.

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.

Yes, this place amuses me. And when hunger pangs kick in after a few attempts a light eating, I…read moreknew a calzone was in order to quell my craving for something delicious and filling. And after searching Uber Eats for Calzones, I settled on Goodfellas since I had it before and it was a reasonable price... even for delivery. I like my calzones simple... ricotta, mozzerella and on meat, usually ham or meatballs. If you get too many toppings (insidings?), then they tend to skimp on the cheese so they can pack it in there like Han Solo stuffing Luke into a Taun Taun (especially if you pick pepperoni which just makes is soooooo greasy) They have one of the best Calzone's in town and I have no idea what a large would entail, other than a trip to the hospital. The small is a good value. This would be 5 stars if it wasn't for the super duper small portion of wedding soup. What Italian in their right mind would give a guest such a small portion? It was good, but small. And had ditalini instead of acini di pepe. C'mon man!!!! They do have dining in the restaurant which is always better than getting it to go, but the convenience of ordering and still having it be delicious is a plus!

Always a good Italian restaurant. Service was pleasant during our latest visit…read more Don't skip on the garlic knots. They're one of the bests. They include the perfect amount of olive oil and garlic. I love that the meals include bread and a side salad (house or Cesar). This time I got the Chicken Antonio. The meal included a lot of food. However, I wasn't feeling the taste this evening. It was good, just not great.

Took a weekend trip to Orlando and after all the traveling we needed a good pizza to ring in the…read moreweekend. I'm SO glad we stumbled across this NY style pizza parlor!! We ordered the classics.... Cheese and pepperoni pizza!!! You know a place is GOOOOOD when their cheese pizza makes you want to come back!!! And this spot made me wish I was in Orlando more often just to order this pizza!! Both pizzas were perfectly cooked, not too greasy, and not too crazy ( you know those new pizza places and their taco or hamburger pizzas) The service was fast and the pizzas were still fresh when we got home!!!!!! I definitely recommend ordering from or going to visit Pizzeria Valdiano!!! It was delicious

I love this place so much. I love the pizza, the wings, the subs, and workers. A group of the…read morekindest and funniest bunch ever. I enjoy the ambience and definitely recommend this place.

Came for lunch, they have some great lunch specials for pizza by the slice. The pizza was very…read moregood. Plan to come back to try some other options for sure. Thanks!

This has become our go to spot! The bottom of the pizza is always crunchy and the cheese adds the…read morebest gooeyness. The staff is always kind and the inside makes you feel like you're really in new york! they have dressing available in the fridge and if you have zupp make sure to look out for any offers!

This was a lunch stop. I was pleasantly surprised overall. It's a pretty spacious location. The…read morelunch menu is very affordable. Depending on how hungry you are, you can choose from the never ending options from $10.49-$12.49. I had a soup, bread sticks and the Shrimp Scampi. I could not eat seconds. I was full with the first round. If you have a larger appetite, this is a lunch to try for you. My waitress, Brittney, was polite and attentive. I was in and out within an hour.

I usually love pasta and get excited for Olive Garden even though it's not the highest quality…read morefood. But I was very disappointed. I ordered the manicotti and was surprised to find what seemed like tortillas stuffed with cheese instead of actual pasta. It definitely didn't have the texture or taste I expected from manicotti, and it felt more like a shortcut than a proper dish. I also ordered a drink that was so overwhelmingly sweet I couldn't even finish it. It tasted more like straight syrup than something balanced. The soup and breadsticks were quite good. The service was friendly. But the main meal just didn't live up to expectations. Probably won't be ordering the manicotti again.

Our office frequently orders Rosati's when we're doing lunch in the office. We found it because we…read morehave some people from Chicago so they know it well and love the Rosati's deep dish. The pizza is good! I'm not the biggest deep dish fan, so I don't really have much to compare it to, but I will definitely eat a couple slices of Rosati's deep dish. Although I have requested that we get some of the thin crust too, and that is delicious as well! It is a thinner crust, but it's not a crunchy thin crust This week, we also tried the little dough bites, the texture was interesting, but I really liked them! I've never been into the location, so my experience has only ever been with delivery, and we've had no issues there.

Pizza was okay, the inside is very nice! Customer service…read morewas good too. Not a lot of toppings on the pizza, but it was good just not our favorite

This was a great team building experience. We had a lovely time checking out Sanford and had some…read moreamazing food and drinks. Our driver Mary was so much fun and made it a great experience for all of us. I would absolutely recommend Limo Cycle to others and look forward to doing it again!

Best thing we did in Sanford!! I had my kids with us, ages…read more11 and 14. It was a little spicy, but the kids had a blast! Stephan was so enthusiastic and lively, we couldn't have asked for a better driver. The pedaling was not overwhelming at all! We stopped at 3 bars for about 15-20 minutes at each. We brought our own food and drinks with us and there was even a bartender to take care of us while we toured around. Hands down, the best and most fun interactive thing I have done in a long time!!! And did I mention my kids loved it??