The Tampa/St. Petersburg area has some first class attractions that won't leave sand in your shoes. First and foremost is the Salvador Dali Museum (www.salvador dalimuseum.org), which houses thousands of the Spanish surrealist's works, including Cadaques (1923) and Girls with Curls (1926). What's it doing in Florida? The private collection of Dali collectors A. Reynolds Morse and Eleanor Reese was too big for their house, so they moved their collection to this museum in 1982.

If you've got kids, they probably won't let you have a moment's peace until you take them to Busch Gardens Africa (www.busch gardens.com), the theme park with both wild animals and wild rides like the SheiKra dive coaster or Congo River Rapids. Adults can wait for their brood at the Hospitality House, where they're entitled to up to two free mugs of Anheuser-Busch products (and we don't mean O'Doul's). An hour north of St. Pete is Weeki Wachee Springs (www.weekiwachee.com), a water park that has been staging a live "mermaid" show since 1947. (No, they're not real mermaids—swimmers dress in mermaid costumes to frolic in the springs daily for the truly kitschy but beloved show.)

At Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry (www.mosi.org) kids get to touch, handle, and ride on all the toys, like the bike trip across a 98-foot long cable suspended 30 feet in the air. Or try swimming with the fishes at the 200,000 square-foot Florida Aquarium (www.flaquarium.org), a favorite rainy-day alternative. Kids don wet suits and scuba gear to float with a guide on the top of the aquarium's reef tank, where they'll spy eels, grouper and tarpon.

Yankee fans descend on the Bay area every March, when the Bronx Bombers hold their spring training games at Legends Field, in Tampa (get tickets in advance; they sell out). The rest of the year, the suddenly hot Devil Rays play in front of largely empty seats at domed, charmless Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. While you're there, stop by the Ted Williams Museum & Hitters Hall of Fame (www.twmuseum.com), which celebrates not only the Splendid Splinter's career, but also those of legends like Mickey Mantle, Hank Greenberg, and George Brett.

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"St Petersburg Attractions ". October 23, 2008 http://mobiltravelguide.howstuffworks.com/tc-beaches-st-petersburg-attractions.htm (November 24, 2009)