Art Festival

Florida is known as the Sunshine State, we have the best weather during the winter season, not extremely cold, not too hot, and just perfect enough to enjoy the day outdoors. If you are looking for a family oriented activity, free and educational I recommend the Mount Dora Art Fest. It happens every year on the first weekend of February at downtown Mount Dora. The hours of operation are form 10am to 5pm. It is one of the main events the town along with the Mount Dora Center for the Arts organizes.  It congregates more than 285 artist from all over the world and more than 250 000 visitors every year. It is one of the most recognize art events in Florida. 

 Downtown Mount Dora streets become a sea of tents during these two days; exhibits featuring oil paintings, pottery, photography, glass, watercolors, acrylics, sculpture, amaze  the visitors. If you are feeling like taking a small break from the walking, just go to the downtown park and enjoy the live music.  The park has a distinctive small hill, and people just sit there to enjoy the main stage and the view of the festival. There is also food offered, a variety of  tents selling BBQ, turkey legs, popcorn, honey roasted pecans (my favorites), Burgers, Gyros, Arepas, ice cream, smoothies, and many other options. If you are feeling like spending a few more bucks, there are great restaurants to go downtown just a few steps down the street. My recommendations are: the Monkey and the Frog, the Gobblin Market and Pizza Amore.

This is a family oriented event, and there are fabulous activities to enjoy with the little ones. There is a  “Kid friendly art zone” where the children can develop their creativity with different art materials provided by the Mount Dora Center for the Arts.

 This will be my 9^th year attending the festival, and it never gets boring. Every year the talented artists stun me. My favorite tent is this guy that takes pictures of lightings from around the world. He just captures the right moment it is amazing. Another tent is this lady that takes pictures of cats, which I love, I just want to buy them all. One of the sponsors of festival is WFTV  channel 9, you can get to meet your favorite local news presenters.

A few things I recommend if you are going are: leave your pets at home, they are not allowed to be at the festival. Parking is really difficult to find, if you arrive early there is a chance you will find parking at the street, if not, prevent the waste of gas driving around, and for only 5 dollars you can park at the high school or any church, and they will provide a bus to take people downtown. This is the best convenient way, the buses go back and forth every 20 minutes.  If you are from out of town,  watch out for the speed limit, police here have very little to do, and they love to check on the speeders. Save yourself a ticket!. Don’t forget to enjoy the beautiful Lake Dora views. Enjoy your day at the festival!