Little town, Apalachicola
I’d heard many a time that the panhandle of Florida isn’t Florida in the sense of our national identity of it, as a bastion for snowbirds, northern accents, and non-southern traditions which involve hot nights, latin influences and Mickey Mouse. The panhandle, just as I’ve been told, is southern in attitude, and Apalachicola is the little southern coastal town. BTW, it is assigned a much larger dot on the map than its size would suggest!
Apalachicola is, at its core, a fishing village. Trawlers occupy the riverfront. I was told there were some 40+ fishing warehouses on the river in Apalachicolas heyday, a booming seaport in Victorian times. The architecture reflects this, with a mix of Victorian, greek revival, and the traditional southern veranda style houses. The population was many times what it is today, as along side its busy waterfront commerce, the locals prospered in the lumber industry.
Today, my sense is that the town has clawed itself back from tough times to create a charming small village. There are still fishermen and their trawlers to be seen, with no doubt the backbreaking lifestyle that comes included, but there is a tourist industry here. There still are quite a few blank storefronts in the downtown historic buildings, but there are also numerous unique shops too. Among them, a 50s style soda fountain and knickknack store. Rob and I missed this, but we were kicking ourselves for delaying until afterhours. We also visited a cobbled together couple of rivershacks occupied by tons of new and old seafaring knickknacks. Rob was in nautical heaven, with all the buoys, life rafts, charts and sea lanterns one could hope for. It was a pretty cool store.
Back to tourism, there was not a room to be found in the traditional Victorian inns that populate the town. There are so many of them, and they are all booked. The street fronting the river was hosting a classic boat show, and the town right down the coast Carabelle was having a festival of its own, so we were out of luck for the bed and breakfast or charming inn! We ended up in the Rancho Inn, a fake adobe looking Mexican affair motel, which cost us about 30 more dollars than one of the charming inns with complementary breakfast. Ah, well. Rob and I, in room 114 of the “Nacho” as we affectionately called the motel, still had a great time, took a nap, watched movies into the wee hours with some snackfood from the convenience store across the street, well after Apalachicola had called it a night (11pm), and laughed at our grandious lifestyle. Places we went worth mentioning:
Lunch:
Boss Oyster, on the riverfront. Cheery outdoor patio cleverly protected from seagulls by clear fishingline. A good margarita!
Dinner:
Veranda’s, right off the mainstreet of town. Also outside (obviously), food more upscale, live jazz music.
Other:
The Raney House, museum. An elegant lady hosts a visit to the historic Greek Revival house and let us know quite a bit of the history of the family and the town.
Dixie Theatre, downtown. A fully renovated live theatre with nostalgic outdoor ticket booth, which hosts plays and other events from Oct – March. We didn’t get to see a play, but we did wander around.
Tags: Apalachicola, Deep South USA, Florida, Panhandle, Roadtrip, USA, Tag Index
jessicab