The first day we stayed in the area and besides relaxing, the only thing on the agenda was a walk to the Bal Harbour Shops across the street. It is quite a nice complex with lots of high end stores and gastronomy (more on that later).

The Riedel ad is hilarious!

Yeah, I mean who doesn't go to the beach, then sees the plane ad and thinks "I'll better pick up some Riedel glasses on the way home. Will 7-eleven sell them?"

Perhaps Or even better: Should I go for a Covid-treatment?

Many of them are hilarious.

The shock in hotel prices was not over yet. In the supermarket in Bal Harbour the next shock was waiting. With toilet paper I had already noticed a somewhat strange quality in the hotel. Super thin, there is hardly something like that in Germany in the station toilet. Here there was now the luxury variant. 4 rolls three-ply (OK, 284 sheets per roll) for $7.79. In Germany I pay for 6 rolls five-ply 3 to 4 euros, 10 rolls 3-ply with 200 sheets you get in Germany quite for under 4 €.

A kitchen roll two-ply?

Special Offer????? The cost online at Lindt € 3.49, in the store it is often cheaper.

I believe everything.....

In the evening we went to dinner at Atlantik�s. The menu is interesting. First of all bread.

To drink, as so often, there was San Pellegrino. No wonder there are water problems in northern Italy. Presumably everything is pumped out and sold in green bottles all over the world. Apart from the fact that this source must pump like crazy, I also think it is madness. Why transport water halfway around the globe? Is there no water in Florida?
The first thing I chose was the lobster.


The taste was good, but at $30 for the portion, it was of course quite tasty. There was also a sea food tower next to it. I was disturbed that there were always stone crabs. The way of "extraction" does not suit me.
GF had a fennel and tomato soup for $16. Tasty good and very filling.

For our main course, we both had Shrimp Pasta for $38 each. The portion was very large, the pasta cooked a bit too soft.

We were really too full for dessert (I don't usually know!), so it was cancelled. Really great was not the food, would say medium. With water and service we paid $ 187.26.

Duplicate

I bought a bunch of those Lindt bunnies at the factory in Zurich last week. I think I paid the equivalent of 3 USD each.

That�s fair. Today at a big store it was 3,49 €. In promotion it�s sometimes 2,99 € and at the 11th April it will be 1,75 €

The next morning it was finally time to explore Miami. As I said, we didn't have a rental car, so we had to find another way. As I said, I still had plenty of driving credit at Sixt Ride, who work together with Lyft. We wanted to start in South Beach and ordered a car. After deducting 20 � credit it should cost between 0 and 3 $ The Amex should be worth it. Indicated were 30 minutes at Sixt, as well as Google.
First, we waited forever for our driving, when the car turned in he first drove to the wrong building. But then it went off. For me completely incomprehensible he suddenly turned off to downtown, especially since this route was completely full of traffic jams. Although the entire time a much shorter and faster route was available, he drove and huge detours and almost only through traffic jams. Not a word about that. In the end, we were 1.5 hours on the road and the ride cost $25 after deducting the discount. No word of explanation. I think it was a classic rip-off.
It was the first time I gave a driver no tip at all and a 1 star rating. From Sixt Ride I got on my complaint a standard email in which I was told that there may be traffic jams and roads may be closed. Sure, that's why on Google Maps the other routes are also available.
In the end, it's less about the $20, but the wasted vacation time. It was the first and last time I used Lyft. After that, I resorted to Uber. On top of that, my credit was suddenly no longer available for redemption.

We started our visit to South Beach at the Art Deco Welcome Center. There is a museum there for $5 per person.
It is a room with display boards and few artifacts. One exhibit dealt with the beginnings of radio. At first I found it very expensive, but considering other admission prices in Miami, it was fine.

We walked a bit along Ocean Drive. The Art Deco buildings are pretty.



We will come to the Versace Villa later.

Mainly they are hotels and restaurants.






From now on, things got a little crazy. The road was closed and a large number of supercars were now lined up. According to the foiling, these were cars from Luxx Miami, a car rental company that also seems to broker houses and the like. In between, lightly dressed young ladies stood around, posing for photos.







A bit of a hustle and bustle for me, but there were masses of people out and about.

Indeed, total madness shipping water bottles all over the globe. As I'm originally from the same area where several mountain springs are already running dry due to the drought that is enduring since end 2021 and seems not going to improve soon.

Same with Fiji-water and other nonsense....