Day 56 23/8 Thursday Adventure Island, Tampa Bay

We decided to have a day at a water-theme park to stay cool. Being mid-week and with most of the US children back at school we were pretty sure that it wouldn’t be too busy despite the weather. We enjoyed reliving our youth trying some of the waterslides. We thought the wave-pool was a bit of a joke compared to the ocean but some of the more adventurous slides we tried with rings and double rafts were fun.  These four 60 something Australians received a few strange looks from some of the younger people but you only live once. We had a great day returning to our accommodation in the late afternoon. Over the last couple of weeks many people have given us great suggestions of where and what we should eat. One place has been suggested several times and that was “Columbia”. People had said that as soon as you are south you must eat in one of the Columbia restaurants. There are at least 7 in the state. We realised after checking things out that our Airbnb was only 9 minutes’ drive away from the original Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City, Tampa. This restaurant was established in 1905 and is Florida’s oldest restaurant. We booked this restaurant which is famous for its Spanish/Cuban cuisine and decided to also include the Flamenco dancers in our dining experience. Well what an amazing night of delicious, faultless food and brilliant flamenco dancing. Once we had finished our meals we were able to explore the fantastic building. It started as a corner café in1905 and just continued growing. The restaurant is now 5^th generation family owned and the largest Spanish restaurant in the world. It now seats 1,700 in 15 dining rooms. Just google ColumbiaRestaurant.com if you want to see more of this wonderful place.