Boca Raton

Boca Raton has always meant, to me, affluence and Mafia so, being in the area, we took a drive a few miles north and visited the city.  It's like a night and day difference between it and Ft. Lauderdale!  The entire city is meticulously landscaped, the basins filled with larger and larger yachts.  Even the grocery stores have elaborate facades and entryways.  Wide streets, gated communities, huge hotels and multi-million dollar homes are found throughout. 

Boca Raton skyline

The body of water you're seeing here is the intracoastal waterway.

Entrance to a Publix grocery store

We spent some time driving through a small area called Old Floresta.  This is the historic district of the city and was originally built in the mid 1920s with narrow streets and lush landscaping.  Although some of the homes have been scraped and replaced, we saw many that seemed to be of the era.  We could tell that these folks must have full time gardeners just to keep the paths to the homes open!

Narrow streets

The hedges provided peeks of the homes behind them.

Some of the homes in the neighborhood

Not sure what this is but I found it interesting.

It was funny, when we got on Hwy A1A to take the beach road back to Ft. Lauderdale, it was extremely apparent when Boca ended and the next city started.  The perfectly smooth, blacktopped road instantly turned to patched concrete.  I'm telling you, it was like day and night!

Boca Raton turned out to look exactly as I had pictured and I'm glad I got the chance to see it.  Wouldn't want to live there, even if I was worth millions or billions, but it was certainly interesting to see!

Until next time...