Hello! Today's travel post is the first post of our last day in Pensacola Beach, Florida. It was a cool, over cast day in Florida, so we went to visit historic downtown Pensacola Florida in the morning. We drove around the older neighborhoods, stopping the car to take pictures when we saw some interesting older homes. I was actually surprised that were so many vintage homes in Pensacola that are not only still standing, but appear to be in very good shape. One thing I noticed about Pensacola Beach, was that everything seemed 'brand new'. Our family just attributed that to the fact that the area is probably constantly rebuilding and repairing after every tropical storm and/or hurricane that hits the barrier island. Pensacola is protected by the barrier island of Santa Rosa Island, so maybe they don't incur near as much damage from storms. I don't know. I'm just guessing. Here is one of the lovely older homes in the historic village that we really liked. We kept seeing all these beautiful orange trees in front of every house. I don't know how good the oranges taste, but they sure are pretty as ornamental trees! I can't tell you what a joy it was for me to see flowers in January! I snapped this picture of Azaleas that bloom in May in Wisconsin, but obviously bloom in January in Florida. This is a carved tree sculpture which is holding up a heavy branch of the same tree. I've always had a fondness for yellow houses. Here is another historic home in the village. After we toured the historic neighborhoods of Pensacola, we then drove to the business district. Pensacola is only about four hours from New Orleans, so we weren't surprised to see the influence of the French Quarter architecture in Pensacola. We were blessed to be able to go inside one of the buildings that had a lot of restaurants/bars and take these pictures. The history is this place was phenomenal! Here is a billiard room in one of the bars. I loved the old lighting fixtures: This is a restaurant: don't you just love all the iron and brick work? Another beautiful lighting fixture. There was so much gorgeous wood in this place. We found this very, very old bar. It reminded me of a saloon you see in old western movies. The saloon was decorated with a aviation theme and had lots of pictures of hot air balloons and airplanes on the walls, and lots of replicas like this hot air balloon hanging from the ceiling. These beautiful wooden doors are the entrance to the saloon. I loved all the iron work in the business district, especially if it was a teal color like this one. This is a portion of the ladies restroom. It's a long, narrow area just for touching up your make up or hair. The wall paper was very interesting. There is a beautiful brick enclosed alley that connects all the bars and restaurants together. Outside the restaurant is a lovely garden courtyard. Parked outside the restaurant was this vintage fire truck that my husband matched perfectly with his Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt. I believe this was the museum, that we didn't visit because of lack of time. I always marvel at the palm trees….we just don't see those type of trees in Wisconsin! They are such a treat to my eyes! This is another business district. There wasn't much shopping in the area, it seemed mostly to be filled with bars and restaurants. It probably has quite the night life! The New Year's Eve celebration is held in this area, and I read that it draws 55,000 people. We did not attend that because it was so cold New Year's Eve. There were lots of seating areas outside the restaurants. I loved seeing LIVE hanging plants. Everything is dead in Wisconsin in the winter, it was so nice to be somewhere that had LIFE in the middle of winter. A public building: Most of the business buildings had the New Orleans style balconies like the ones pictured below: And finally, you all know how much I love old churches. Here is Pensacola's historic church Old Christ Church established in 1832. Gorgeous! Have a great day! Amy