Miami in Its Winter Clothes

Miami is several cities wearing one name, and this route threads the polished ones, from the planned streets of Coral Gables across the bay to the beach and north to the quiet end of the island. It wants three nights between December and April, when the humidity stands down and the whole region puts on its winter clothes. Drive between the stops, walk everything within them.

Start in the city George Merrick drew up in the nineteen twenties, coral gates, banyan-shaded avenues, and a grand hotel from 1926 whose tower still owns the skyline. Swim once at the Venetian Pool, the old quarry the town turned into the most beautiful municipal pool in America, and take dinner on Miracle Mile or the streets behind it, where the Gables keeps its old-world manners after dark.

Cross the causeway and settle mid-beach, where the Art Deco district is a walk south and the crowds thin with every block north. Give the Deco district one slow morning, the pastel hotels along Ocean Drive are the finest collection of the style anywhere, then claim a beach chair for the afternoon, which is the actual business of the island. Dinner in South Beach is a performance and worth doing once, properly, with a reservation made weeks ago.

End at the island's quiet northern tip, a village of a few blocks where the beach is uncrowded, the shopping is internationally serious, and the volume stays down by long-standing design. The famous shops earn a browse even for the immune, open-air under the palms, and the beach path along the dunes handles the mornings. Take the last dinner here, unhurried, and notice how far you have traveled from Ocean Drive in twelve miles. That range is Miami's whole trick, and by now you know how to work it.