Central Florida

WORDS BY JULIETTE GUILBERT

Florida’s other Magical Kingdom

It’s not all castles and cartoon characters in Central Florida. Discover the peaceful charms of this lush, picturesque region.

Walt Disney World may reign as Central Florida’s main tourist attraction, but just beyond its glittering spires, magic of a quieter sort prevails. Drive north out of Orlando and you’ll soon find yourself in a region of historic small towns, green rolling hills, pristine waterways and glorious wilderness.

The first stop on any Central Florida road trip is likely to be Mount Dora, a whistle-stop of around 10,000 souls, an hour outside Orlando in Lake County. As its name suggests, Lake County is dotted with 1,000 tranquil lakes connected by a web of navigable canals and rivers. Mount Dora is an artfully preserved town in a storybook setting, so named because it sits 184 feet above sea level on the sloping banks of Lake Dora (a stratospheric altitude in this pancake-fl at state—pick up an “I climbed Mount Dora” bumper sticker while you’re there). Mount Dora, which can also be reached from downtown Orlando via a historic train, the “Cannonball”, resembles a 19th-century New England village.

Its streets are lined with white clapboard houses and neatly-tended gardens, and a historic downtown liberally sprinkled with the requisite antique shops, galleries, ice cream parlors and gingerbread inns. Stroll the boardwalk over Palm Island Park’s wetlands, take a cruise on one of the pontoon boats that ply the lake and the cypress-canopied Dora Canal, and at sunset, return to town for a drink on the wide veranda of the 120-year-old Lakeside Inn.

Beyond Mount Dora, the Lake County terrain is equally appealing and laidback. The county is (unsurprisingly) known largely for its boating and fishing scene—Lake Harris, Lake George and the St Johns River are all on the state’s list of top spots for catching species like largemouth bass, black crappie and sunfish. But even if you don’t fish, getting out on the water is a must here; rent a canoe or a paddleboat in Mount Dora or Tavares, the county seat, or hire an experienced river guide to take you out on one of the area’s innumerable picturesque waterways for a bit of paddling and gator-spotting. For a more acutely cultural experience, the Sumter County farmers’ market and fl ea market in downtown Webster, about 40 miles southwest of Mount Dora, is quite a sight: each Monday morning, 40 acres of vendors converge there to sell everything from local produce to tube socks (and on Tuesday afternoons, there’s a cattle sale). The market was created by local farmers in 1936 and gradually grew into the mammoth, nationally-known affair it is today. Get there early, because the action is mostly over by around lunchtime.

Fishing on one
of the 1,000 tranquil
lakes in Central Florida’s
appropriately-named Lake County.Once you’ve got your feet wet in the pastoral landscapes of Lake County, it’s time to plunge into Florida’s primeval wilderness in earnest. Ocala National Forest, a 380,000-acre park and game refuge in Lake and Marion Counties, encompasses coastal lowlands, swamps, clear artesian springs, lakes and vast tracts of palmetto wilderness, live oak hammocks, scrub oaks and sand pines. Pretty much every type of outdoor recreation can be pursued here—camping (both full-service and back-country), paddling, hiking, fishing, hunting and swimming—but it’s the waters that make this park special; as a Florida canoeing and kayaking destination, Ocala is second only to the Everglades. The forest’s fl at topography and slow-moving rivers have created a system of “prairies,” a term that in Florida refers not to dry grassland but to submerged fl atlands, sunny expanses of shallow water dotted with cypresses and water lilies, and teeming with aquatic wildlife.

Several large freshwater springs also invite boating, swimming and cave diving. For back-country explorers who prefer to keep their feet on dry ground, the 66-mile Florida National Scenic Trail is popular with hikers. Mountain bikers can head to the 22-mile Paisley Woods Bicycle Trail and trail riders can hire horses at a number of area ranches. In some portions of the forest, motorbikes and ATVs are permitted as well.

The Florida
National
Scenic TrailWhen you emerge from the woods and swamps, head a few miles west to the town of Ocala, as charming a slice of Old Florida as you could ask for. The green, hilly countryside that surrounds this city of about 50,000 is crisscrossed by white paddock fences, signs of the more than 1,000 local thoroughbred ranches that give the region its sobriquet of “Horse Country.” Ocala’s horse farms are working concerns but some of them offer visitor tours and trail rides. The area’s other offerings range from the picturesque—carriage tours of the historic downtown and nearby ranches—to the down-home—the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing, which has a stellar collection of dragsters, speedsters, and antique stock and custom cars on display. Downtown, The Appleton Museum of Art has an excellent, eclectic collection of American and European art, as well as pre-Columbian art and artifacts.

If Ocala isn’t quiet and out-of-the-way enough for you, Central Florida is dotted with even sleepier—and equally picturesque— towns. Dunnellon, population 1,951, has a nationally-registered historic district built during the late 19th century with the proceeds of the region’s phosphate mines. Here, you can stay in a B&B, hike through forests of oaks, pines and magnolias and go tubing and canoeing on the spring-fed Rainbow River.

On the other side of the national forest, DeLand is a university town and skydiving mecca (the tandem jump, where a jittery newbie is lashed to a calm professional, was pioneered here). DeLand also boasts historic downtown architecture and the usual Central Florida natural wonderland-type surroundings: springs, rivers, lakes, herons, eagles, manatees. And in nearby Cassadaga, you can have your fortune told by a resident medium at the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp—a community of metaphysicians founded in 1884. Or, for the commercialized, instant-gratification version, stop at one of the walk-in tarot parlors that line the highway outside the camp.

Historic Gainesville After such old-timey pleasures, Gainesville, a city that combines Old South graces with college-town bohemianism in a splendid North Central Florida setting, will seem positively postmodern. Home to the University of Florida, Gainesville boasts fine museums, lovely historic architecture and the kind of thriving nightlife that caters to a 75,000-strong population of 18- to 24-year-olds. The Florida Museum of Natural History has exhibits on Florida’s land and peoples, and a new four-story butterfly rainforest. The university’s Samuel P Harn Museum of Art has devoted a new wing to contemporary art, along with collections of African, Ancient American, Asian and Oceanic art. For seasonal local produce, a farmer’s market sets up on Wednesday afternoons in downtown’s Sun Center; this is a pedestrian mall anchored by the Hippodrome, a historic post office-turned-theater.

Sunset at Mount Dora And if, after Ocala National Forest, you still haven’t had your fill of Florida’s uncannily beautiful biomes, check out Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, just south of town, where herds of wild bison and horses roam a prairie that can be either submerged or dry, depending on natural cycles of drought and rain.

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