Salvador Dali Museum

We left the campground this morning around 11:30 to go the the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. We drove south on US-301 to CR-6 (Moccasin Wallow Rd) and then west to I-75. We changed to I-275 to cross Tampa Bay on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. It is a cable stayed bridge with a vertical clearance of 191 feet above the Tampa Bay. This is quite an impressive sight approaching it and just as impressive driving on the bridge.

From Little Manatee River State Park & Tampa

This is the new Sunshine Skyway Bridge that opened in 1987. It replaced the original bridge that collapsed when it was struck by a freighter in May 1980. After paying the $1.00 toll we crossed the bridge to St. Petersburg.

From I-275 we changed to I-175 east which took us to the Dali Museum. We arrived at the museum about 12:45 after driving 50 miles from the state park. After parking our car in the lot next to the museum, we stopped to look at the marina near there.

The first thing we saw at the front of the museum was this wonderful bench.

From Little Manatee River State Park & Tampa

From Little Manatee River State Park & Tampa

Then we entered The Dali and paid the entrance fee of $29.00 for both of us (the senior discount price). We just missed getting in on the docent guided tour by a few minutes. We decided to just tour the museum on our own instead of trying to catch up with the tour.

I would love to be able to show photos of some of the amazing art we saw today, but no photos can be taken inside the museum. The best I can do is put the link to the museum here - The Dali. The detail in Dali's paintings, the variety of subjects and in some cases, the sheer size of the paintings such as The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus - a painting that is almost 14 feet tall and 9 feet wide.

We were able to hear some of the latter part of the guided tour near the end of our visit. The docent was well-versed in Dali's art and pointed out details in each painting that could easily be missed.

Before we left the museum we did some shopping in the gift store and bought some souvenirs. We also asked for direction to the new Dali museum that is being built in St. Petersburg.

We drove the few blocks over to the location of the new museum and it is very impressive. Someday we'll come back to visit the new Dali Museum and we'll definitely be sure to time it so we can go on a guided tour.

From Little Manatee River State Park & Tampa

We drove through downtown St. Petersburg before heading back over to Little Manatee River State Park. Once again we crossed over Tampa Bay on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge (another $1.00 toll).

From Little Manatee River State Park & Tampa

When we got back to the RV, I took Tinker for a walk. That's when Tinker met his first gopher tortoise. I don't know who was more nervous - Tinker or the tortoise.

From Little Manatee River State Park & Tampa