This past April, Mark and I took a Staycation for the first time in forever. Meaning we took an entire 5 days in a row off of work and planned nothing (other than releasing precious Hocus squirrel back into the wild). We woke up each day and either decided on a local adventure or decided to do absolutely nothing besides being home with no major obligations. Ahhhhh – everyone should do this every six months – just sayin. Seeing as I am just now getting around to posting about our local adventures from that week, tells me things got crazy busy again as soon as it was over. One of the local adventures we took was our very first visit to Bok Tower Gardens.
Bok Tower Gardens is a 250-acre contemplative garden and bird sanctuary located atop Iron Mountain, north of Lake Wales, Florida, United States. There is almost too much to see in just one trip and we look forward to returning to see it during different seasons. Yes – despite what people think, Florida does in fact have seasons! They are just a little different and delayed than what we had been used to in Ohio. Our trees still change colors and lose their leaves and it does get freezing cold – I’m a huge baby when I’m used to 90+ degrees every day all year and then it drops into the 40’s. Plus our northern counties do see frost and even further in North Florida they do get snow every once in a while! I digress… Take a look at the photos I took this past April 2021.
There are so many beautiful things to see and areas to explore – You can plan a visit here. Of course our first stop was the Tower and we listened to the Carillon Music and fed the koi in the ponds, we walked through The Gardens, The Pinewood Estate, Hammock Hollow, and the Nature Trails. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch and wine flight at the BLUE PALMETTO CAFÉ after wandering around for several hours taking in the sights and taking lots of photos. Like everything in Florida – we exited through the gift shop and wanted to buy everything! They even sell many of the plants you see around the gorgeous grounds – it’s very inspiring if you just moved into a new home and are dying to landscape like we are. This place is full of amazing History and we highly recommend checking it out – we can’t wait to go back and see what else there is to discover! Check them out on Facebook and Instagram!