Everglades City Tamiami Trail
It's the Saturday before Christmas and we are on our way from Miami Beach to Naples. It's a cool day in the high sixties. Since we could leave Miami Beach by 10 am we decided to take the scenic route which is Tamiami Trail route 41. This is called the Old Alligator Alley. You can actually see alligators on the side of the road about 20 miles in.
Our first stop was Oasis Welcome center which we were out for a few minutes. Then we started driving towards Everglades City. We took a scenic route Turner River Road. It was truly beautiful with lots of mangroves, tropical birds alligators and typical Everglades wildlife. Below you will see some pictures I managed to take. I highly recommend to take this route.
We were getting hungry and decided to head to Everglades City for food. The first sign we saw was City Seafood as we entered the city. It looked like the parking lot was full and was definitely a popular spot. After parking a block away we walked to the front of the building which had two picnic benches and tables with people enjoying the sun and eating their fresh seafood. City Seafood is a very casual restaurant where you order your seafood and you pick up at the window when its ready. The menu is rich with frog legs, stone crab legs, daily catches like grouper, snapper, dolphin fish, and other local fishes. Lots of shrimps, prawns, conch, oysters and lobsters. The kitchen was very busy but friendly. Order takes about 10 minutes as they prepare it. We asked for some samplers so we could taste a bunch of stuff. Conch was good, crab cakes were awesome. Fish was very very fresh. The fried food was surprisingly light. We all enjoyed fresh seafood. Oh, I forgot to mention that the back of the building has many tables that you can sit and the scenery is unbelievable. As you can see in the below pictures it's like a backyard paradise. They have the blue intra-coastal waters with green mangroves and other plants. Air boats taking passengers around. Fishing boats are tied to the piers. It's a beautiful scene. You can sit out there on a patio chair for hours just enjoying the scenery.