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MIAMI

| USA

300C FEATURE DESTINATION: Miami, Florida, USA

Far and away the most exciting city in Florida, MIAMI is a stunning and often intoxicatingly beautiful place. Awash with sunlight-intensified natural colors, there are moments – when the neon-flashed South Beach skyline glows in the warm night and the palm trees sway in the breeze – when a better-looking city is hard to imagine. Even so, people, not climate or landscape, are what make Miami unique. Half of the two million population is Hispanic, the vast majority Cubans. Spanish is the predominant language almost everywhere – in many places it’s the only language you’ll hear, and you’ll be expected to speak at least a few words – and news from Havana, Caracas or Managua frequently gets more attention than the latest word from Washington, DC.

Just a century ago Miami was a swampy outpost of mosquito-tormented settlers. The arrival of the railroad in 1896 gave the city its first fixed land-link with the rest of the continent, and cleared the way for the Twenties property boom. In the Fifties, Miami Beach became a celebrity-filled resort area, just as thousands of Cubans fleeing the regime of Fidel Castro began arriving in mainland Miami. The Sixties and Seventies brought decline, and Miami’s reputation in the Eighties as the vice capital of the USA was at least partly deserved. As the cop show Miami Vice so glamorously underlined, drug smuggling was endemic; as well, in 1980 the city had the highest murder rate in America. Since then, though, much has changed for two very different reasons. First, the gentrification of South Beach helped make tourism the lifeblood of the local economy again in the early Nineties. Second, the city’s determined wooing of Latin America brought rapid investment, both domestic and international: many US corporations run their South American operations from Miami and certain neighborhoods, such as Key Biscayne, are now home to thriving communities of expat Peruvians, Colombians and Venezuelans.

THE CITY

Many of Miami’s districts are officially cities in their own right, and each has a background and character very much its own. Most people head straight to Miami Beach , specifically the South Beach strip, where many of the city’s famed Art Deco buildings have been restored to their former stunning splendor, all pastels, neon and wavy lines. Though touted as the chic gathering place for the city’s fashionable faces, it’s not as exclusive as you might expect, especially on weekend afternoons when families and out-of-towners join the washboard stomachs and bulging pecs. Make time, too, for Key Biscayne , a smart, secluded island community with some beautiful beaches, five miles off the mainland but easily reached by a causeway.

On the mainland, downtown has a few good museums but little else of interest to visitors. Little Havana , to the west, is the best spot to head for a Cuban lunch, while immediately south the spacious boulevards of Coral Gables are as impressive now as they were in the 1920s, when the district set new standards in town planning. Independently minded but equally wealthy Coconut Grove is also worth a look, thanks to its walkable center and a couple of Miami’s most popular attractions.

ARRIVAL AND INFORMATION

Miami International Airport (tel 305/876-7000) is six miles west of the city. A cab from the airport should cost around $24, or you can take one of the 24-hour SuperShuttle minivans, which will deliver you to any address in Miami for $9-15 (tel 305/871-2000, ). From the airport, take the #7 Metrobus to downtown, a trip of 30 minutes or so ($1.25, exact fare required; every 40min Mon-Fri 5.30am-8.30pm, Sat & Sun 7am-7pm), or the ‘J’ Metrobus ($1.25 plus a 25¢ surcharge to South Beach; every 30min daily 5.30am-11.30pm) to Miami Beach farther on. If you arrive late at night, the Airport Owl shuttle runs in a loop through South Beach, downtown and back to the airport ($1.25; once hourly, 11.50pm-5.50am). Greyhound’s Miami West station is a short cab ride from the airport, while the other major terminal is downtown at 100 W 6th St (tel 305/374-6180 or 1-800/231-2222, ). The Amtrak station, 8303 NW 37th Ave, is seven miles northwest. To get downtown or to Coconut Grove or Coral Gables from here, take Metrobus #L to the Metrorail, eight blocks away.

A good place for information and maps is the Greater Miami Convention and Visitor Bureau , 1920 Meridian Ave (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat & Sun 10am-4pm; tel 305/672-1270, ). In South Beach, at the Art Deco Welcome Center, 1001 Ocean Drive (Mon-Fri 10am-5pm; tel 305/672-2014, ), the Miami Beach Art Deco Preservation League has details on walking tours and events, and a great line in retro gifts.

CITY TRANSPORTATION

Driving is the most practical way to get around Miami. Though the safety warnings handed to visitors as they pick up their rental cars can make unnerving reading, the much publicized tourist-targeted car-jackings of the early 1990s are now no more of an issue here than in any major city. Watch out for road signs marked with an orange sun on a blue background; they identify the most useful routes to the main attractions. Tourist police patrol in cars with the same logo.

With a lot of time and patience, it is possible to make your way around Miami on public transportation run by Metro-Dade Transit (tel 305/770-3131 or for route information). Metrorail trains (5am-midnight) run, slowly, along a single line between the northern suburbs and South Miami; useful stops are Government Center (for downtown), Coconut Grove, and Douglas Road or University (for Coral Gables). Single-journey fares are $1.25. Downtown Miami is also ringed by the Metromover (5.30am-midnight; flat fare 25¢), a monorail that doesn’t cover much ground but gives a great bird’s-eye view. Metrobuses cover the entire city, but services dwindle at night; the flat-rate single-journey fare is $1.25, with a 25¢ surcharge for transfers. Route maps and timetables for all Metro-Dade Transit services can be had at Government Center Station, and at the Metrorail station at NW First Avenue & First Street.

Taxis, Cycling and Tours

Driving is the most practical way to get around Miami. Though the safety warnings handed to visitors as they pick up their rental cars can make unnerving reading, the much publicized tourist-targeted car-jackings of the early 1990s are now no more of an issue here than in any major city. Watch out for road signs marked with an orange sun on a blue background; they identify the most useful routes to the main attractions. Tourist police patrol in cars with the same logo.

With a lot of time and patience, it is possible to make your way around Miami on public transportation run by Metro-Dade Transit (tel 305/770-3131 or for route information). Metrorail trains (5am-midnight) run, slowly, along a single line between the northern suburbs and South Miami; useful stops are Government Center (for downtown), Coconut Grove, and Douglas Road or University (for Coral Gables). Single-journey fares are $1.25. Downtown Miami is also ringed by the Metromover (5.30am-midnight; flat fare 25¢), a monorail that doesn’t cover much ground but gives a great bird’s-eye view. Metrobuses cover the entire city, but services dwindle at night; the flat-rate single-journey fare is $1.25, with a 25¢ surcharge for transfers. Route maps and timetables for all Metro-Dade Transit services can be had at Government Center Station, and at the Metrorail station at NW First Avenue & First Street.

EATING

Cuban food is what Miami does best, and it’s not limited to the traditional haunts in Little Havana – the hearty, comfort food, notably rice and beans, fried plantains and shredded pork sandwiches, is found in every neighborhood. It is, however, complemented by sushi bars, American home-style diners, Haitian restaurants, Italian eateries and Indian venues, among a handful of other ethnic cuisines. Coral Gables stakes its claim in upmarket cafés and ethnic Italian and Greek restaurants, while Coconut Grove features American, Spanish, New Floridian – a mix of Caribbean spiciness and fruity Florida sauces – and even British. Seafood is equally abundant; succulent grouper, yellowfin tuna and wahoo, a local delicacy, are among five hundred species of fish thriving offshore. Stone crab claws , served from October to May, are another regional specialty. A tropical climate provides Florida with a juicy assortment of standard orange and grapefruit citrus, as well as the exotic flavors of the lychee, mango, papaya, tamarind and star fruits – many of which are used in sauces and batidos (light milkshakes). You’ll also want to drink Cuban coffee: choose between café cubano , strong, sweet and frothy, drunk like a shot with a glass of water; café con leche , with steamed milk, and particularly good at breakfast with pan cubano (thin, buttered toast); or café cortadito , a smaller version of the con leche .

*Ayestaran*ing Cuban restaurant offers hearty daily specials and superb café con leche that you can mix to your liking.

Bambu 1661 Meridian Ave, Miami Beach tel 305/531-4800. Celebrity eateries are big business in Miami, and this one is co-owned by the actress Cameron Diaz. But the draw at this place is the food – great Asian fusion sushi and the occasional celebrity sighting make it a good place to splash out.

Big Fish Mayaimi 55 SW Miami Ave, downtown tel 305/373-1770. A lively spot on the Miami River, it has great fish dishes and a splendid view. The menu includes home-cooked fish sandwiches and fresh seafood chowder.

Big Pink 157 Collins Ave, South Beach tel 305/531-0888. Big portions of comfort food – mashed potatoes, ribs, macaroni and cheese, and classic “TV dinners” at 1950s prices – are served up.

David’s Café 1058 Collins Ave, South Beach tel 305/534-8736. Cuban restaurant with two locations on the beach (the other is at 16th & Meridian Ave), where suited Cuban businessmen doing deals sit alongside cholo teenagers. The food is authentic and there’s eat-in and take-out at both restaurants.

Fishbone Grille 650 S Miami Ave, downtown tel 305/530-1915. The busy, friendly restaurant serves excellent seafood with creative starters like shrimp potato fritters and smoked fish mousse.

Gino’s 731 Washington Ave, Miami Beach tel 305/673-2837. Open 24 hours a day, it serves true New York-style pizza to shift workers and clubbers alike. It’s famous, too, for a dedication to staying open, even in the face of hurricanes.

Greenstreet Café 3468 Main Highway, Coconut Grove tel 305/444-0244. Its terrific breakfasts make this café a real scene at weekends. It has a large number of outdoor tables for watching the world go by.

Joe’s Stone Crabs 227 Biscayne St, South Beach tel 305/673-0365. A legendary restaurant, it is always packed for its superb stone crabs – if you’re impatient, do as the locals do and head to the takeout window. Crabcakes, fresh fish and crispy fried chicken are also good. Open mid-Oct to mid-May.

Larios on the Beach 820 Ocean Drive, South Beach tel 305/532-9577. It is better known for being owned by singer Gloria Estefan rather than for its sophisticated – and surprisingly affordable – “Nuevo Cubano” food served in a Latin nightclub atmosphere.

Monty’s 2560 S Bayshore Drive, Coconut Grove tel 305/854-7997. Skip the pricey indoor restaurant and head for Monty’s Raw Bar on the waterfront. Sit in the tiki huts eating fresh fish and sipping well-priced drinks.

News Café 800 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach tel 305/538-6397. The established, fashionable sidewalk café has front-row seating for the South Beach promenade – although the food’s unremarkable. Open 24hr at weekends.

Puerto Sagua 700 Collins Ave, South Beach tel 305/673-1115. The Cuban diner serves great, rich black bean soup and other filling meals.

La Sandwicherie 229 W 14th St, South Beach tel 305/532-8934. Don’t be put off by the silly name. This place serves serious sandwiches starting at around $6 from its open-air lunch counter; each giant French loaf doorstop could make two meals, and it’s open until 5am.

Tap Tap 819 5th St, South Beach tel 305/672-2898. Haitian food is at its tastiest and most attractive in one of the best-looking restaurants in Miami Beach, hung with local art.

Versailles 3555 SW 8th St, Little Havana tel 305/444-0240. At this legend in Little Havana, very little English is spoken. Local families, Cuban businessmen and backpackers congregate here for the wonderfully inexpensive Cuban dishes, served by one of the friendliest staffs in Miami.

Yambo 1643 SW 1st St, Little Havana tel 305/642-6616. Try the good, inexpensive Nicaraguan food at an undiscovered gem. Step out of the USA and into Central America without leaving Miami.

Yuca 501 Lincoln Rd, South Beach tel 305/532-9822. Discover Nuevo Cubano cooking at its best – and most expensive. Expect to pay at least $50 a head. Latin music at weekends.

DRINKING, NIGHT LIFE AND ENTERTAINMENT

Miami’s nightlife is still unsurpassed. Drinking tends to take second place to eating and partying, but a number of friendly local bars double as very good live music venues. Reggae is particularly strong; Miami has a sizable Jamaican population, and local as well as flown-in acts appear regularly. Miami’s clubs – especially those specializing in salsa or merengue and hosted by Spanish-speaking DJs – are among the hippest in the world, with most of the action at South Beach. Door policies are notoriously obnoxious at current in-spots; the places listed below include laid-back local haunts and some of the hotter bars.

Friday’s Miami Herald carries full weekend entertainment listings ; the free weekly New Times has reliable information on cafés and clubs, while the free TWN ( The Weekly News ) is the key source of gay and lesbian info .

If you want to try out the local sports scene, the Marlins pro baseball team, who won the World Series in 1997 in only their fourth season, and the Dolphins , Miami’s pro football team, play at the Pro Player Stadium, sixteen miles northwest of downtown at 2269 Dan Marino Boulevard (box office Mon-Fri 10am-6pm; tel 305/620-2578).

Bars and live Music

The Abbey Brewing Company 1115 16th St, South Beach tel 305/538-8110. The small yet homey spot is South Beach’s only microbrewery. (Try the creamy Oatmeal Stout – their best and most popular brew.) Happy hour Mon-Fri 1-7pm.

Churchill’s Hideaway 5501 NE 2nd Ave, Little Haiti tel 305/757-1807. A British enclave within Little Haiti with soccer and rugby matches on video and UK beers on tap.

Club Deuce 222 W 14th St, South Beach tel 305/531-6200. This grimy, noisy grunge bar is a remnant from pre-fabulous South Beach. Drinks are cheap, and there’s a dartboard, pool table and an alternative crowd.

Delano Pool Bar Delano Hotel , 1685 Collins Ave, South Beach tel 305/672-2000. An antidote to the super-exclusivity of the hotel, this poolside bar offers reasonably priced drinks for anyone who knows it’s back there. It’s still a good place for celebrity-spotting, too.

Hungry Sailor 3426 Main Hwy, Coconut Grove tel 305/444-9359. The unpretentious, male-dominated bar features a nautical theme and occasional live reggae.

Lost Weekend 218 Espanola Way, South Beach tel 305/672-1707. The preppy clientele plays pool and enjoys a great happy hour and the ladies’ night drink specials.

Pearl Restaurant and Champagne Lounge above Nikki Beach at 1 Ocean Drive, South Beach tel 305/538-1231. Swathed in orange lights, this neo-Space Age all-white bar has a champagne bar in the center of the main room. Drinks are pricey, so stay for one glass, then head elsewhere for the rest of the evening.

Rumi 330 Lincoln Road, South Beach tel 305/672-4353. The undisputed bar of the moment has a strict door policy and a huge crowd clamoring to get in most nights. It morphs into a mini-nightclub around 11pm, when the music gets louder and funkier.

Tobacco Road 626 S Miami Ave, downtown tel 305/374-1198. The friendly bar – Miami’s oldest – is a favorite with locals for its exceptional live blues, jazz and R&B.

Wet Willie’s 760 Ocean Drive, South Beach tel 305/532-5650. From this welcome antidote to the chic scene in Miami Beach, customers take the bargain $5 jumbo frozen drinks back to the beach.

Clubs

B.E.D. 929 Washington Ave, Miami Beach tel 305/532-9070. This restaurant serves its meals on curtained beds where everyone lounges, Roman-style, to try the so-called FrancoFloribbeAsian food: get there early to snag one of the beds. B.E.D. stands for Beverage.Entertainment.Dining – and so this restaurant becomes a club come midnight, with Wednesdays the hippest night.

Club Tropigala Fontainebleu Hotel , 4441 Collins Ave, South Beach tel 305/538-2000. This superb, popular Latin supper club features live acts and an orchestra, with shows Wed-Sat 8.30pm and Sun 8pm ($20). Dress up to the nines and salsa the night away with a friendly, varied crowd amid a fabulously camp decor.

Crobar 1445 Washington Ave, South Beach tel 305/531-8225. At this superclub, hardcore dancers and a loved-up crowd get started around 4am.

N Nightclub 743 Washington Ave, South Beach tel 305/695-9299. It’s most famous as a former investment of Madonna’s and also for the story that the actress Jennifer Lopez came in to party one New Year’s Eve – only to have the owners ask her to leave.

Nikki Beach Club One Ocean Drive, South Beach tel 305/538-1231. The place to be on Sunday nights, an outdoor club right on the sand of the beach, it features tiki torches and VIP tepees you can reserve for a little privacy.

Opium 136 Collins Ave, South Beach tel 305/695-4204. At this giant open-air club, a tent covers the dance floor and multilevel spaces are accessed from the main bar.

BEST OF MIAMI

Ocean Drive
South Beach’s finest Art Deco showpiece with cosmopolitan cafés, flashy vintage cars and wannabe models.

Little Havana
Lunch on Cuban specialties and café con leche in this Hispanic enclave.

Fairchild Tropical Gardens
Fairchild Tropical Gardens’ acres of rare tropical plants, flowering trees and sleepy vines are a perfect setting for a picnic or solo meditation.

Joe’s Stone Crabs
Expensive but absolutely worth it, world-famous Joe’s is known for its succulent stone crab claws and the best key lime pie you’ll have in Florida.

Villa Vizcaya
Erected in the 1910s, the mock sixteenth-century Italian Villa Vizcaya – complete with sculpture gardens and elaborate fountains – is Miami’s answer to Versailles.

Venetian Pool
In Coral Gables, the waterfalls and underwater caves of this quarry-turned-luxurious swimming pool provide a great break from the heat and the salty Atlantic.

The Wolfsonian
The superb Wolfsonian museum houses 70,000 pieces of American and European knickknacks – including antique books and posters – produced between 1885 and 1945.

EXPLORE MIAMI

Coconut Grove

COCONUT GROVE has come a long way since the 1960s, when it was peopled by down-at-heel artists and writers: these days, it rivals South Beach in trendiness, with a glittering cluster of art galleries, fashionable cafés and restaurants, and towering bay-view apartments.

There’s more to “the Grove,” – on Biscayne Bay about four miles southwest of downtown – than people-watching, however. A century ago, a strange mix of Bahamian salvagers and New England intellectuals laid the foundations of a fiercely individual community, separated from the fledgling city of Miami by a dense wedge of tropical foliage. In 1914, farm machinery mogul James Deering blew $15 million on re-creating a sixteenth-century Italian villa within this jungle. A thousand-strong workforce completed his Villa Vizcaya , 3251 S Miami Ave (daily 9.30am-4.30pm; $10), in just two years. Deering’s madly eclectic art collection, and his concept that the villa should appear to have been inhabited for four hundred years, result in a thunderous clash of Baroque, Renaissance, Rococo and Neoclassical fixtures and fittings; the fabulous landscaped gardens , with their fountains and sculptures, are just as excessive. Frequent guided tours (45min) leave from the entrance loggia and provide solid background, after which you’re free to explore at leisure.

Blatant statements of wealth predominate as you approach central Coconut Grove. The marina on Dinner Key sports lines of million-dollar yachts, and the neighboring Coconut Grove Exhibition Center is usually consumed by top-of-the-range trade shows. It was at the Dinner Key Auditorium (a forerunner of the Exhibition Center) in 1969 that Jim Morrison , singer with the Doors, dropped his leather trousers during the band’s first – and last – Florida show, bringing the band more infamy than they knew what to do with.

About two miles south along the coast, the 83-acre Fairchild Tropical Garden , at 10901 Old Cutler Rd (daily 9.30am-4.30pm; guided tours hourly 10am-4pm; $8), is the largest tropical botanical garden in the continental US. The entire range of tropical environments has been reproduced, and there’s a good section on native south Florida areas.

Coral Gables

All of Miami’s constituent cities are fast to assert their individuality, but none has a better case than CORAL GABLES , southwest of Little Havana. Twelve square miles of broad boulevards, leafy side streets and Spanish and Italian architecture form a cultured setting for a cultured community. Coral Gables’ creator was a local aesthete, George Merrick , who raided street names from a Spanish dictionary to plan the plazas, fountains and carefully aged stucco-fronted buildings. Following the first land sale in 1921, $150 million poured in, which Merrick channeled into one of the biggest advertising campaigns ever known. However, Coral Gables took shape just as the Florida property boom ended. Merrick was wiped out, and died as Miami’s postmaster in 1942. Coral Gables never lost its good looks, though, and remains an impressive place to explore. Merrick wanted people to know they’d arrived somewhere special, and eight grand entrances were planned on the main approach roads (though only four were completed). Three of these stand along the western end of Calle Ocho as you arrive from Little Havana.

The best way into Coral Gables is along SW 22nd Street, known as the Miracle Mile . Dominated by department stores, travel agents, and a staggering number of bridal shops, it gets more and more expensive and exclusive as you proceed west. Note the arcades and balconies, and the spirals and peaks of the Colonnade Building , nos. 133-169, completed in 1926 to accommodate George Merrick’s office. Further west, along Coral Way, the Merrick House , no. 907 (Sun & Wed 1-4pm; $5; tel 305/460-5361), was George’s boyhood home. In 1899, when he was twelve, his family arrived here from New England to run a 160-acre farm, which was so successful that the house quickly grew from a wooden shack into an elegant dwelling of coral rock and gabled windows (thus inspiring the name of the future city).

While his property-developing contemporaries left ugly scars across the city after digging up the local limestone, Merrick had the foresight to turn his biggest quarry into a sumptuous swimming pool. The Venetian Pool , 2701 De Soto Blvd, opened in 1924, is today an essential stop on a steamy Miami afternoon. Its pastel stucco walls hide a delightful spring-fed lagoon, with vine-covered loggias, fountains, waterfalls, coral caves and plenty of room to swim. The café isn’t bad, either (call for hours; April-Oct $8.50, Nov-March $5.50; tel 305/460-5356).

Wrapping its broad wings around the southern end of De Soto Boulevard, Merrick’s crowning achievement was the fabulous Biltmore Hotel , 1200 Anastasia Ave. With a 26-story tower visible across much of low-lying Miami, everything about the Biltmore was over-the-top: 25ft fresco-coated walls, vaulted ceilings, immense fireplaces, custom-loomed rugs, and a massive swimming pool hosting shows by such bathing belles and beaux as Esther Williams and Johnny Weissmuller. Today, it costs upward of $200 a night to stay here, but a fascinating free tour leaves from the lobby every Sunday (1.30pm, 2.30pm & 3.30pm; tel 305/445-1926 for more information). A short way south at 130 Stanford Ave is the University of Miami , site of the Lowe Art Museum (Tues-Wed, Fri-Sat 10am-5pm, Thurs noon-7pm, Sun 12-5pm; $5), whose diverse permanent collection ranges from European Old Masters to Native American artifacts and Guatemalan textiles.

Downtown Miami

More like Buenos Aires than Boston, it’s perhaps DOWNTOWN MIAMI that shows the city at its most Latin. Downtown divides into distinct halves: big business and big buildings line Brickell Avenue south of the Miami River, while the commercial bazaar around Flagler Street to the north hums with jewelers, fabric stores and cheap electronics outlets. Latin culture is comfortably dominant here – from office workers grabbing a midmorning cafecito , or Cuban coffee, from tiny streetside cafés to the bilingual signage in almost every store. If at first it may seem overwhelming, persevere: downtown is compact, holds two of Miami’s best museums and provides the clearest idea of Cuba’s continuing influence on the city.

Flagler Street is downtown’s loudest, brightest, busiest strip; at its western end is the Metro-Dade Cultural Center , an ambitious attempt by architect Philip Johnson to create a postmodern Mediterranean-style piazza. Art shows, historical collections and a library frame the courtyard, but Johnson overlooked the power of the south Florida sun: rather than pausing to rest and gossip, most people scamper across the open space toward the nearest shade. The center’s Historical Museum of Southern Florida at 1010 W Flagler (Mon-Wed, Fri & Sat 10am-5pm, Thurs 10am-9pm, Sun noon-5pm; $5, $6 combination ticket with Center for Fine Arts) provides a comprehensive peek into the region’s history. It has a strong section on refugees and immigration since 1960. A few yards away, the Miami Art Museum of Miami-Dade County houses a strong collection of post-1940 art, and showcases outstanding international traveling exhibits (Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, third Thurs each month 10am-9pm, Sat & Sun noon-5pm; $5, $6 combination ticket with Historical Museum; tel 305/375-5000).

Beside Biscayne Boulevard (part of Hwy-1), on the eastern edge of downtown, is the Bayside Marketplace , a large pink shopping mall enlivened by street entertainers and food stands. Across Biscayne Boulevard, the Freedom Tower , built in 1925 and modeled on a Spanish bell tower, earned its name by housing the Cuban Refugee Center in the 1960s. Between December 1965 and June 1972, ten planes a week brought over 250,000 Cubans allowed to leave the island by Fidel Castro. While US propaganda hailed them as “freedom fighters,” most of the arrivals were simply seeking the fruits of capitalism, and, as Castro astutely recognized, any that were seriously committed to overthrowing his regime would be far less troublesome outside Cuba.

Fifteen minutes’ walk from Flagler Street, the Miami River marks the southern limit of downtown. Around 1900, the millionaire oil baron Henry Flagler extended his railroad, which had opened up Florida’s east coast, to reach Miami from Palm Beach. His Royal Palm Hotel (on the site of today’s Hotel Inter-Continental ) did much to put Miami on the map. One of the landowners was William Brickell, who ran a trading post on the south side of the river, an area now dominated by Brickell Avenue – the address in 1910s Miami. While the original grand homes have largely disappeared, money is still the avenue’s most obvious asset: its half-mile parade of bank buildings is the largest grouping of international banks in the US. The rise of the banks was matched by new condominiums of breathtaking proportions (and expense) but little architectural merit.

Key Biscayne

A compact, immaculately manicured community, KEY BISCAYNE , five miles off mainland Miami, is a great place to live – if you can afford it. The moneyed of Miami fill the island’s upmarket homes; Richard Nixon had a presidential winter house here. The only way onto Key Biscayne is along the four-mile Rickenbacker Causeway ($1 toll), a continuation of SW 26th Road just south of downtown, which soars high above Biscayne Bay, giving a gasp-inducing view of the Brickell Avenue skyline.

Crandon Park Beach , a mile along Crandon Boulevard (the continuation of the main road from the causeway), is one of the finest landscaped beaches in the city, with crystal-clear waters, barbecue grills and sports facilities (daily 8am-dusk; $4 per car; tel 305/361-7385). Three miles of yellow-brown beach fringe the park, and give access to a sand bar enabling knee-depth wading far from shore.

Crandon Boulevard terminates at the entrance to the Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Recreation Area , four hundred wooded acres covering the southern extremity of Key Biscayne (daily 8am-dusk; $3.25 per car; tel 305/361-5811). Hurricane Andrew took a devastating toll on the area in 1992, but most of the destroyed trees are beginning to grow back thanks to aggressive replanting, and the trails and boardwalks have been repaired. An excellent swimming beach lines the Atlantic-facing side of the park, and a boardwalk cuts around the wind-bitten sand dunes toward the 1820s Cape Florida lighthouse . Only with the ranger-led tour can you climb through the 95ft structure – attacked by Seminoles in 1836 and incapacitated by Confederate soldiers aiming to disrupt Union shipping during the Civil War.

Little Havana

The impact on Miami of Cubans , unquestionably the largest and most visible ethnic group in the city, has been incalculable. Unlike most Hispanic immigrants to the US, who trade one form of poverty for another, Miami’s first Cubans had already tasted the good life when they arrived during the late Fifties and were soon enjoying more of the same here. Some now wield considerable clout in the running of the city.

The initial home of the Miami Cubans was a few miles west of downtown in what became LITTLE HAVANA , whose streets, if the tourist brochures are to be believed, are filled by old men playing dominoes while puffing on fat, fragrant cigars, and exotic restaurants whose walls vibrate to the pulsating rhythms of the homeland. Naturally, the reality is quite different. Little Havana’s parks, memorials, shops and food stands all reflect the Cuban experience but the streets are quieter than those of downtown Miami (except during the Little Havana Festival in early March). Many successful Cuban-Americans have moved to Coral Gables or elsewhere in the city, to be replaced by immigrants from elsewhere in Central America, especially Nicaragua. By all means make a beeline here for lunch at one of the many small restaurants on SW 8th Street, or Calle Ocho (its main drag), but don’t expect monuments and museums – Little Havana’s a neighborhood geared toward those who live and work, rather than visit, there.

There is, however, a cluster of memorials between 12th and 13th avenues along Calle Ocho that underscores the Cuban-American experience in Miami. Here, the simple stone Brigade 2506 Memorial remembers those who died at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, during the abortive invasion of Cuba by US-trained Cuban exiles. Veterans of the landing, aging men dressed in combat fatigues, gather here for each anniversary and make all-night-long pledges of patriotism.

MIAMI BEACH

A long slender arm of land between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, three miles off mainland Miami, MIAMI BEACH was an ailing fruit farm in the 1910s when its Quaker owner, John Collins, formed an unlikely partnership with a flashy entrepreneur, Carl Fisher. With Fisher’s money, Biscayne Bay was dredged. The muck raised from its murky bed provided the landfill to transform this wildly vegetated barrier island into a carefully sculptured landscape of palm trees, hotels and tennis courts. After a hurricane in 1926 devastated the city and especially the beach, damaged buildings were replaced by grander structures in the new Art Deco style and Miami Beach as we know it appeared. Since then, its history has been checkered: by the 1980s, crack dens and retirement homes were equally commonplace in South Beach, but the 1990s saw a renaissance spearheaded by a few savvy hoteliers and Miami’s gay community.

One of the groups that remained in Miami Beach through it all was its sizable Jewish population, including many Holocaust survivors and their families. The Holocaust Memorial at 1933 Meridian Ave (daily 9am-9pm; free; tel 305/538-1663), at Dade Boulevard and Meridian Avenue opposite the visitor center, is a complex, uncompromising monument to their experience. From a distance, the impression is of a giant, defiant hand punching into the sky; as you approach, however, you make out the mass of wailing people scrabbling up the wrist. Following the wall of names, inscribed with a relentless list of Holocaust victims, brings you to the foot of the sculpture, hidden from the road, where distressing statues portray more writhing, emaciated human figures. The whole, brutal, ensemble is underscored by the accompanying quote from Anne Frank: “Ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered.”

A few blocks northeast is the prestigious Bass Museum , in a lovely Art Deco building at 2121 Park Ave (tel 305/673-7530 for opening times and prices). The museum has been undergoing major renovations, overseen by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, and its reopening has been put back several times: at time of writing, it was scheduled for early 2002. The museum’s permanent collection consists of fine, if largely unremarkable, European paintings, although its temporary exhibitions are often lively and worth visiting.

The Beaches of Miami Beach

If you took away the Art Deco, the beautiful people and the glittering nightlife, you’d still be left with the simple truth that Miami has a fabulous choice of beaches , twelve miles of calm waters, clean sands, swaying palms and candy-colored lifeguard towers – even if much of the sand in Lummus Park was shipped in from the Bahamas. The young and the beautiful soak up the rays between 5th and 21st, a convenient hop from the juice bars and cafés on Ocean Drive. Lummus Park , from 6th to 14th, is the heart of the South Beach scene, and there’s an unofficial gay section roughly around 18th. North of 21st it’s more family-oriented, with a boardwalk running between the shore and the hotels up to 46th. To the south, Ocean Park and South Pointe are favored by Cuban families, and are especially convivial at weekends. For swimming , head up to 85th, a quiet stretch usually patrolled by lifeguards.

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