Amelia's Azaleas

One of the shops in the shopping area on the resort property.

The azaleas were in bloom all over Amelia Island when we visited this past weekend for a 4 day get-away at the Amelia Island Plantation Resort. The island is in the north-eastern most corner of Florida, near Jacksonville, FL. The weather was wonderful all weekend with blue skies, sunny, and comfortable temperatures in the high 70's during the day time. We didn't test the water temperature, as we figured it would be like a very cold shower. 


We departed from Tampa after lunch on Friday and headed eastbound on I-4. For some reason there was a traffic jam from the Lakeland area to north of Orlando that we estimated cost us at least 1 hour of drive time. Oh, not an issue (except for Frank who did all the driving in the backup - thank you sir) as we had no plans except for dinner at the Verandah Restaurant, one of the main restaurants at the resort. You knew there would be some food comments somewhere in this blog. After Check-In at the extremely friendly front desk, and a brief visit to our room - 5th floor, overlooking the Atlantic (as are all the rooms at the hotel) we headed to The Verandah Seafood Restaurant via the free resort shuttle.(click to view menu from their website - MENU). Frank ordered the Chipotle Honey Glazed Grilled Salmon and I opted for the Grilled Grouper. Both were very good and the portion sizes were perfect. For dessert we shared the Mud Pie - wonderful I say.


After breakfast the next morning we shuttled to the Fitness Center to burn off some of the calories we were consuming. Today we spent some time exploring the resort and some of the shops. The Plantation is very large with many private homes and condominiums as well as rental villas and the hotel.


For Saturday dinner, we had a reservation at Le Clos in Historic Fernandina Beach. It is a lovely French restaurant located in at 1906 cottage in the heart of downtown. Click MENU if interested. We started with a shared Pork and Chicken Liver Pate- very nice. For our entrees Frank ordered the Steak au Poivre cooked to a perfect medium rare. I opted for the Lamb Shank, tender and falling off the bone. For dessert we shared the home-made Vanilla Ice Cream with Caramel sauce, a great finish to a lovely dinner.


Sunday was another day of relaxing, eating and (shhhh) drinking. We spent more time roaming the property in a rental golf cart, called an Island Hopper. That was a fun way to cover the property with ease.


Lunch was back in town. Frank was familiar with a Sushi restaurant that he had dined at on a previous visit to the historic downtown area. Unfortunately it is closed on Sunday. We finally settled on The Crab Trap. It was OK, but not worth spending any time to cover on the blog.


Dinner was at the hotel bar where we ordered a nice cheese plate, Shrimp Cocktail and off the Ocean Grill (also closed on Sunday) menu, one of the restaurants in the main hotel. That was a nice way to wrap up our visit to the Amelia Island Plantation Resort. We had a very relaxing time, which was the intent of this journey.