Tallahassee is the capital of Florida, but it lacks everything symbolic of the Sunshine State: There are no beaches, no theme parks and not many tourists. Yet there are many unique and beautiful aspects visible to those who bother to look closer and venture off the beaten path. We, my wife and I, started to take nightly bike rides through Tallahassee at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 as all restaurants, bars, gyms, pools closed down. We are athletes, mostly running and swimming, and the closure of the public swimming pools hit us hard initially. Because we always swam in the early evening to avoid the sun as much as we could, we decided to take out our bicycles to ride through town instead. At the beginning of the pandemic the streets were deserted, making for ideal cycling conditions. As all restaurants and watering holes were also closed, we always took our own beer with us in a backpack.
Tallahassee is an underrated yet beautiful city, when you know where to look, but to our surprise going through town by bike at night opened up an unexpected view onto it that went beyond the typical attractions like football games, the campuses of Florida State and Florida A&M University, a handful of museums, the Old Capitol, oak-lined canopy roads, nature trails, haunted mansions and plenty of Spanish moss.
This blog will describe some of those unknown attractions in word and photo. All the photos were taken by myself (most digital, some on 35mm film) and are hosted on a separate Flickr website (where you can find many more photos; just click on them). For most of the photos I tried to find some unusual or unknown perspectives (many at night) and subjects, not usually found in Tallahassee or Florida themed guidebooks. As an example, I was surprised that no-one (to my knowledge) published a photo of the New Capitol from below Apalachee Parkway at night (see below). The reason might be that this particular spot is easy to access by bicycle, but easily missed if you go around by car. That is, riding a bicycle has its visual advantages.
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Fuel
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Swimming Pools
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Smokey Hollow
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The Unknown Florida 
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