Dalí, Ringling & Edison: Three World-Class Collections Down Florida's Gulf Coast

The largest collection of Salvador Dalí's work outside Spain — 96 oil paintings, over 100 watercolors and drawings, and 1,300 graphics. Ohio industrialists A. Reynolds Morse and Eleanor Morse began collecting Dalí in 1943 and maintained a 40-year friendship with the artist; they donated the entire collection to St. Petersburg in 1982. The 2011 building by HOK architects is a reinforced concrete geodesic glass bubble (the 'Enigma') that cantilevered to resist hurricane-force winds. The collection's centerpiece is 'The Hallucinogenic Toreador' (1969–1970) — 157 × 157 inches, the largest Dalí oil painting in existence, in which 26 Venus de Milos dissolve into a bullfighter's face visible only when stepping back. The chronological galleries trace Dalí's complete evolution from academic realism through Surrealism to his late nuclear-mysticism period.

A comprehensive encyclopedic art museum in downtown St. Petersburg — the permanent collection spans 5,000 years from ancient Egyptian and Greek antiquities through European Old Masters to 20th-century American art, with a particularly strong photography collection. The museum's 2008 addition tripled the exhibition space; the café terrace overlooks Tampa Bay. The Museum is 10 minutes walking from the Dalí Museum along Beach Drive, St. Pete's main cultural corridor.

Beach Drive NE is the main promenade of St. Petersburg's cultural waterfront — a 12-block stretch of restaurants, galleries, and the bayside parks of North Shore. The Vinoy Park (a 6-acre waterfront green space) sits between Beach Drive and Tampa Bay, with the 1925 Vinoy Hotel at its north end — a Mediterranean Revival resort that was the grandest hotel in Florida when it opened and the most notable building on the St. Petersburg waterfront. The evening light on the bay from Vinoy Park is one of the better sunset views on the Gulf Coast.

The 1925 Mediterranean Revival landmark on Beach Drive — a Marriott Renaissance property with 362 rooms in the original building and a marina on Tampa Bay. The main building's exterior pink stucco and red tile roof are the defining element of the St. Pete waterfront. Tomorrow's drive to Sarasota takes 1 hour south on I-275 and US-41.

The Florida State Art Museum — John Ringling (of Ringling Brothers circus) built a Venetian Gothic palazzo in Sarasota beginning in 1927 and filled 21 galleries with his private European art collection. The collection's strength is Flemish and Italian Baroque: five paintings by Peter Paul Rubens including the massive Gathering of the Manna (20 × 27 feet), Cranach, Frans Hals, and multiple Velázquez. Ringling acquired the collection aggressively in the 1920s during the period when American collectors could still buy major European Old Masters at auction. He donated the museum and estate to the State of Florida in 1936; it is now one of the top five art museums in the South by collection depth.

John and Mable Ringling's 1926 Venetian Gothic winter palace on Sarasota Bay — 36,000 square feet, 30 rooms, with a 61-foot belvedere tower, a terrace extending over the bay, and an interior completed with Venetian glass, marble floors, and custom woodwork. The name means 'House of John' in Venetian dialect; the design was inspired by the Doge's Palace in Venice and the Ca' d'Oro. The tour covers the ground and second floors: the living room with its Zuber wallpaper, the Aeolian pipe organ installed for Mable's birthday, and the bay-front terrace that was the setting for the Ringlings' legendary winter parties during the Florida boom years.

Use the afternoon to explore a different side of Ringling Museum of Art — there's more to discover beyond the morning highlights.

A full-service hotel in downtown Sarasota with bay views and walking access to Sarasota's strong restaurant corridor (Main Street). Tomorrow's drive to Fort Myers is 2 hours south on US-41 through the Charlotte Harbor area.

Thomas Edison's winter research laboratory and residence from 1886 to 1931 — 14 acres on the Caloosahatchee River in Fort Myers where Edison spent 44 winters and conducted the private research that produced the carbon filament for the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, and improvements to the telegraph and telephone. The estate remains exactly as it was in 1931, with the original laboratory equipment, Edison's botanical garden (he was testing plants as potential rubber sources for car tires in his final decade), and the Moonlighter, his 60-foot houseboat. Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone visited regularly; Ford's adjacent estate (Mangoes) is included in the tour. The laboratory's equipment is the most intact collection of original Edison invention apparatus anywhere in the world.

Use the afternoon to explore a different side of Edison & Ford Winter Estates — there's more to discover beyond the morning highlights.

Fort Myers' revitalized downtown along the Caloosahatchee River — the historic First Street commercial corridor has independent restaurants, galleries, and a riverfront amphitheater where Edison and Ford used to hold public demonstrations. The waterfront park below First Street overlooks the river that Edison and Ford both used as a boat launch for their Caloosahatchee cruises. The Fort Myers River District is 10 minutes from the Edison estate and provides good lunch options before the return drive to Tampa.