For the last 7 – 8 years, Glen and I have traveled to Florida for Passover, and at least part of the Days of Unleavened Bread – with the exception of last year, when we decided to stay home rather than travel when the pandemic first started ____ in the US.

This year, we are happy to be able to not only come to FL, but, since Glen is still working from home, actually stay from Passover through the last Day of Unleavened Bread! It has been so good to see family and friends; and since we were able to stay the entire week, we decided to stay with family for the Holy Days, Passover, etc. and to go somewhere for the week between Holy Days.

That leaves part of Monday, through to part of Friday, and it’s Florida, so we decided to go to the beach! Neither of us had been to Vero Beach before, and it is only a three hour drive from Tampa.

We got to the beach on Monday afternoon, and are leaving today, Friday morning. It’s been a lovely few days here, so relaxing, and the weather hasn’t been bad…the first couple of days were sunny and warm, the last two were chilly and windy, but the beach was pretty both ways.

We rented a garage apartment from VRBO…it’s less than 10 minutes from the beach – perfect!

The place we rented has been great, it’s a garage apartment that’s part of a much larger home but I don’t think anyone is staying in the main house at the moment, at least that we’ve noticed. We walk from the house to the end of the street, up one block, then cross the street to get to the private beach entrance, love being so close.

The beaches are really nice – and the one closest to where we stayed – wasn’t crowded at all. People there for sure, but nothing like Clearwater beach…which can get super packed, especially this time of year! It can get quite windy so we saw several people surfing which was cool.

We had dinner at a few different places: Captain Hiram’s, Vero Prime, Heaton’s and Cobalt – both in the Kimpton Hotel. Captain Hiram’s is an interesting place and was my absolute least favorite – EXCEPT that we saw a dolphin and the painkiller wasn’t too bad. I’d say skip this place, despite the dolphin sighting ;).

Vero Prime wasn’t great, but they had a good wine list & a really nice flourless chocolate cake – if you’re visiting Vero beach, this would be a great place to go for some nice wine & dessert. The other two places, Cobalt & Heaton’s – were in the Kimpton Hotel. Cobalt was by far the best place we went to. Their terrace outside had tons of palm trees, a beautiful view, and large seating areas around two pretty massive fire pits.

The food was good and the drinks were great….10/10 on this place! Heaton’s is on the other side of the hotel, more casual and I didn’t like it as much just because of the business/atmosphere, but the food was fine OH AND – they have this really great lemon aioli that they served with fries, so good….I had it at Cobalt, then I asked for it at Heaton’s even though I didn’t have fries. I definitely dunked some vegetables in there.

Eating was great (clearly!), but the best part of the trip was just sitting on the beach. I brought a book that I read a little in, Glen got in the water, I collected shells, and we both sat and listened to the waves. We generally headed out in the morning and walked, then, again in the afternoon when the tide was low again, and sat in some pretty comfy beach chairs that came with the rental. Alcohol is not allowed on the beach so I will leave you to imagine us drinking a beer from Ybor City & an interesting hard kombucha…which, again we may or may not have done.

The photo below is one of Glen’s – the last couple of days were more cloudy, which made for some beautiful scenery and more choppy waves. As soon as I finish typing this, we will pack and head back to Tampa for the last Day of Unleavened Bread – I’m happy we’ll be back with family but I’ll miss the sand and the sun and the water. There’s always next spring ….. ! Thanks for stopping by and reading xoxoxox Michelle