Sunday, March 1, 2015

Gasparilla

Wayne at Gasparilla Festival of Arts, Tampa, FL
The first of March and spring as definitely arrived.  The sun felt warm and wonderful on our skin as we sat out for Tampa and the Gasparilla Arts Festival.  The Festival is one of several events that orbit the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival.  Jose Gasparilla is a mythical Spanish pirate that lived in and plundered the Tampa area.  Since 1904 there have been parades (much akin to the Mardi Gras parades) and events celebrating the apocryphal event. To read more about this event please see the Wikipedia article.  The Festival of Arts hosts hundreds of artists and offers $75,000 in prizes, first prize equating $15,000.  The art offerings run the gamut from kitsch to masterful.  Sunday was marred for many artists because of the mud invasion.  You can watch a video and read more about this here. We were not deterred and walked every corridor.  There were 2 music venues, one a folk venue and the other a Broadway offering.  A tenor at the Broadway setting was just magnificent in his rendition of Les Miserables songs. Sculling was happening on the river.  The event is adjacent to the Tampa Museum.  We took a quick tour of the very small museum where their Classical holdings were on view.  After, we drove over to Ybor City to check it out.  It is much larger and really a wonderful street of restaurants and shops.  We will definitely go back there.