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I start with the airport-bus at 8 am. It takes 1½ hour to Billund. The plane for Amsterdam leaves at 11.35. In Amsterdam security-checks are hysterical for my Detroit-flight from Delta Airlines at 14.10. The flying time to Detroit is 8 hours today, so we arrive at about 4 pm local time. That’s almost 1½ hour ahead of schedule. That leaves me with a long wait for my Miami-flight at 8.15. I arrive at Miami at 11 pm. Then I get into a taxi, where the taxi-driver is wearing a thick coat. He thinks it’s cold. I arrive at Fortune House Hotel at midnight. Im tired – very tired.

But my room 2509 is great. I thought I had booked a simple single-room, but this is an apartment with my own kitchen, a furnished living-room with a TV, a balcony with a great view of downtown Miami, a room for sleeping and a walk-in-closet so big that my small amount of clothes for this trip looks ridiculous. And now I have to go to sleep.

It’s a nice apartment, but I'm not here for staying indoors.

So I take a good breakfast at the hotels restaurant before heading out into Miami. My first trip is on the free Metromover opposite the hotel. This will take me to Government, where I buy a 7 day pass for the Miami public transport. It’s not for amateurs to find out how the system works – but then it’s good than I’m a professional. I find a bus named “S” that will take me to South Beach.

I jump off the bus at Lincoln Road, a local pedestrian street. Then I walk down to Miami Beach. I take a walk on the beach, before heading down the most famous place in Miami Ocean Drive. This is where all the Art Deco buildings are. Most of them are painted very colorful. The colors are debatable. There are café’s, restaurants and hotels – and of course lots of tourist. But the place is nice and pretty relaxed. The life-guard houses on the beach are nice as well.

I spend a few hours out here before returning on a bus back to the Metromover. That takes me back to Financial District and my huge hotel-room.

After a break at the hotel, I decide I will go to Little Havana. But either there is no Little Havana in the evening or I just can’t find it. But I do get a little shopping and grabs something to eat before heading back to my hotel.

Public transport in this city is poor. Line “B” to Key Biscayne runs from just opposite the hotel, but there is nowhere to find information about when. So it takes 30 minutes before the bus shows up, and when it reaches Key Biscayne it runs to a wrong destination. I will have to back-track, and wait some more time for the bus that will take me to Bill Braggs Cape Florida State Park.

The park is on the southern tip of Key Biscayne. Key Biscayne is a small island south of Miami Downtown. The trip over there takes you past Rickenbacker Causeway. It’s a nice place and a nice park just 15 minutes away from the hustle and bustle of Miami. I take a long walk around the park. There is nice nature, lovely beaches and an old lighthouse. There are not that many people around. Only a few taking a stroll or fishing. You say hello to the people you meet – or rather “como estas” – most people speak Spanish here.

Second trip is with the Metromover to Bayside Market. There is plenty of action with a Latino-band on the stage. From here you can take boat-tours and see where the celebrities are living. I take one that passes the lovely houses of a number of celebrities. To be honest – I haven’t heard of any of the celebrities before – but that’s probably because I don’t know enough about the rich and the famous. But the tour is nice nevertheless – and the houses look big and expensive.

From here it’s back to the hotel. I pick up at pizza on the way back.

Video -  Paparazzi-tour

I have planned a 2 day de-tour from this visit to Miami. So at 7.15 I’m picked up by Key West Tours and a driven by their bus across the 45 keys of southern Florida to Key West.

We are down there at 11 and I find my hotel at Caribbean House. It’s more normal standard compared to Miami, but fine anyway. The place and the room are painted in bright colors.

Then I head for my first look at this tourist-place. My first stop is Hemingway’s House. There’s a nice tour. Usually I hate tours like that, but this guide is great because he really doesn’t give a damn.

Moving on out into the streets, where I pass the southernmost point in USA. There’s a long queue to have your picture taken at a boring monument, which looks like something that was made in a kindergarten. There are plenty of southernmost this and southernmost that in the area. Now it starts to rain, so I head back to the hotel. 

Later I head out again. It’s raining a lot now. I have brought raingear and umbrella, but left it all behind in Miami. Pretty smart. The small electric train for the tourists is empty, and the spectacular sunset at the harbor is pretty unspectacular when you can’t see the sun. So instead I walk up the tourist trap called Duvall Street with lots of bars and restaurant to my hotel. There I watch the hockey game between Canada and USA:

If there’s something that’s not nice when you travel, its rainy weather. And today we have a full day of it. So I spend the day with some sightseeing trying not to drown.

Check-out at Caribbean House at 10. Breakfast at a local café with tourist-prices. Then out into the streets. When I think I’m to soaked there's nothing else to do, than to take a tourist-bus around town. It’s kind of OK – and you get dry. The guide is not too much of an idiot, and you get to see most parts of town, that I don’t want to do by walking today. And at the end they handle us a plastic-raincoat-poncho for the rest of our time in this wet place.

Then it’s time for a fish’n’chips lunch at a bar down the harbor, before a little more walking. Finally I visit a crap-museum. Mel Fishers Maritime Museum is filled with some stuff from a wreck that was found outside Key West. Who gives a damn?

At 4 the bus back for Miami arrives. 4 hours later it puts me off just outside Fortune House.

Video - Bus back to Miami