Tampa Activities

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• Walking tour of Ybor City — Every Saturday at 10:30AM, the Ybor City State Museum offers a 60 minute walking tour of Ybor City highlighting the cigar industry's impact on the area, historic cottages/businesses, and tours of the YC State Museum & YC Cigar Museum. The $6 cost includes both museum entrance fees. Longer tours are available by appointment Tues-Thurs for $12. If possible, stop by the 100-year-old Columbia Restaurant at the end of the tour for a tasty Cuban lunch.
• Cruise ships, Port of Tampa.
• Gasparilla Pirate Festival, www.gasparillapiratefest.com is an annual event consisting of several parades, live entertainment, and fireworks. The event is also known as the Mardi Gras of Tampa, and normally takes place on the last two Saturdays in January.
• Guavaween. www.cc-events.org/gw offers daytime events and nighttime parade on the last Saturday in October in Ybor City.
• Sant'Yago Knight Parade is an illuminated nighttime parade that takes place one Saturday in February in Ybor City.
• Several film festivals take place at the Tampa Theatre several times a year.
• Read the Tampa Tribune -- Tampa has some sort of event going on nearly every weekend, especially in the spring and early summer. Art festivals, a terrific Renaissance festival, street festivals -- take advantage of the great weather and enjoy our city.
• Surprisingly, ice skating is a popular activity in the Tampa Bay area. The Tampa Bay Skating Academy in nearby Oldsmar has two NHL-sized ice surfaces. Other well-known rinks include Sunblades Center and the rink in Westfield Countryside Mall, both in Clearwater.
• Lettuce Lake Park between I-75 and the University of South Florida has boardwalks that go through a nearly pristine area with 700 year old cypress trees, alligators, egrets and herons. One end of the boardwalk overlooks the Hillsborough River in its original state, a far cry from what it looks like in the downtown area.

• Dade City's Wild Things, 37245 Meridia nave, ☎ 352-567-9453, www.dadecityswildthings.com. Tue - Sa 9:00 - 5:00. A zoo with over 190 animals and private guides who facilitate animal encounters.

• www.gasparillapiratefest.com
• www.cc-events.org/gw