Travel Blog

I love bars. Not in the indiscriminate way of an alcoholic, who loves them only for their bottles, but in a broader, less utilitarian context. I love bars for their atmosphere - the mix of ambiance and architecture that makes them a beautiful refuge from the world.

In a place dubbed "The Sunshine State," and mostly surrounded by water, bars have a distinct advantage: they can embrace the light (straight up or reflected) or dismiss it, creating a den whose dimness is magnified by the outside glare.

Among my favorites in the dark-and-stormy category are the cypress-walled bar at the Cabbage Key Inn, the Little Swedish Bar at Chalet Suzanne, the Rod & Gun Club bar in Everglades City (a recent find) and the bar beneath the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel, where it has long been my dream to sit out a hurricane.

For bright, big-windowed watering holes, my favorite for years was the bar set like an island in the middle of the dining room of St. Petersburg's Vinoy.

But then yesterday evening I attended a party at the Lobby Bar of the Ritz-Carlton on Fort Lauderdale Beach. It is an impressive space, with high ceilings and high windows looking out at the ocean. At the north end sat the bar, its colorful bottles standing at attention before a huge mural of crashing waves. Appropriate to the setting, of course, but also, in a way, to the activity of drinking. (Or its possible aftermath.) Someone told me that inside the wave you could see Neptune riding three horses; I made out a bodysurfer who could have been Neptune or could have been homeless. Someone else told me that the mural contained six horses. (She had had a few drinks.) In any case, the place immediately landed in my pantheon of great Florida watering holes.

(Note to faithful readers: I'm hitting the road - not to Japan - and will be back here on Aug. 10.)