Mount Dora: Lakeside Antiques & Florida's Hidden Main Street

Forty-five minutes northwest of Orlando, Mount Dora sits on a bluff above Lake Dora with a Victorian downtown that has been quietly accumulating antique dealers, independent restaurants, and art galleries since the 1970s. It is one of the few small towns in Central Florida that exists for itself rather than for tourists — a place where the ratio of locals to visitors still tips the right way, where the Lakeside Inn has been open continuously since 1883, and where the afternoon light on the lake is the kind of thing that explains why Henry Flagler's railroad terminus ended up here.