Many of Tampa's cultural centers are clustered downtown along the waterfront in what is referred to as Tampa's Cultural Arts District. Amidst high-rise office buildings and fine hotels, the Tampa Theatre, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Tampa Museum of Art, Henry B. Plant Museum, Tampa Bay History Center and many displays of public art can be found to pique one's cultural curiosity.

The historic Tampa Theatre was built in 1926 and has been a Tampa landmark ever since. This elaborate movie palace is on the National Register of Historic Places and attracts 150,000 people each year with an acclaimed film series, numerous concerts and special events. Decorated in ornate Florida Mediterranean style, the "atmospheric" theater is rumored to be haunted by the friendly ghost of Foster Finley, the theater's projectionist for 20 years, who died in the 1970s.

Just two blocks from the Tampa Theatre is the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, the largest performing arts complex south of Washington, D.C. The center's four distinct theaters allow the presentation of a vast array of spectacular performances, including opera, comedy, cabaret, plays, dance, music, alternative theater and Broadway. This season, a record number of Broadway shows are being presented at the performing arts center, with seven on the season ticket line-up and an additional five as specials. The Center Opera Company and the Tampa-based Florida Orchestra are also frequent performers at the center, together bringing critically-acclaimed operas to Tampa audiences.

Separated from the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center by the lush landscaping of Curtis Hixon Park is the Tampa Museum of Art. Aside from its permanent collection of world-renowned Greek and Roman Classical antiquities, contemporary art, photography and 19th- and 20th-century American sculpture, Tampa Museum of Art features unique exhibitions year-round. The museum also offers a wide range of lectures, gallery talks and classes and, from its glass-enclosed Terrace Gallery, a breath-taking view of the 1891 Tampa Bay Hotel across the Hillsborough River.

Built in 1891 by Henry B. Plant, the Tampa Bay Hotel was the quintessential Victorian palace, featuring unique Moorish revival architecture and dramatic minarets. Today, the National Historic Landmark houses the Henry B. Plant Museum. The museum is a tribute to Florida's budding tourism industry and the turn-of-the-century Victorian era featuring original furnishings and art from the railroad magnate's visionary luxury hotel.

Another downtown museum dedicated to Tampa's beginnings as a tourist destination and metropolitan city is the Tampa Bay History Center. Located in an annex of the waterfront Tampa Convention Center, the museum's Gateway to Florida: Five Centuries of Tampa Bay History exhibit showcases the geographical, historical and multicultural influences that have shaped the Tampa Bay region through the centuries.

Though Tampa's Cultural Arts District is full of interesting museums, it isn't actually necessary to go inside one of them to see fine art. In addition to the backstage tours offered by the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and Tampa Theatre, an "Arts and Architecture" tour of the Cultural Arts District is available through the Tampa Museum of Art. The escorted walking tours are a partial-day exploration of Tampa's fine art in public places. On this interesting tour, visitors will view 12 screen prints by Andy Worhol, a statue of Don Quixote and dozens of works by internationally known and locally renowned artists.

Every February, hundreds of local painters, artisans, jewelers, photographers and sculptors pack this Cultural Arts District to exhibit their work at the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts. The annual festival ranks among the top 10 for fine crafts.

But there is more to Tampa as a cultural center than its downtown Cultural Arts District. The Tampa area is home to many more museums and nearly 30 art galleries.

The Ybor City State Museum gives a glimpse of Tampa's days as the "Cigar Capital of the World" while the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum brings vital, investigative and scholarly exhibition of contemporary art to the community. The canvas of Tampa's galleries is spattered with a variety of works from avant-garde, surrealistic and abstract to contemporary, impressionist and traditional still life. Gallery-hoppers will find art in many mediums including oil painting, watercolor, drawing, graphics, paper, fiber, acrylic, etchings, jewelry, ceramics, photography and sculpture and influences that are Southwestern, European, African and South American.

On the other side of the bay, downtown St. Petersburg is another cultural center with seven uniquely different museums scattered among quaint retail shops and casual sidewalk cafes, all connected by a continuously looping trolley system.

Located on beautiful Bayboro Harbor, the Salvador Dali Museum is the permanent home of the most comprehensive collection of works by the late Spanish surrealist. This unique collection spans his four artistic periods form 1914 to 1980 and includes 95 original oil paintings, more than 100 watercolors and drawings, nearly 1,300 graphics, sculptures, photographs and objects d'arts. The 2,500 items present a panorama of Dali's diverse and evolving art, from his early landscapes, still-lifes and portraits to the double images and enormous religious paintings of his later career. Of the 18 so-called "master works" produced by Dali, six are located in the waterfront museum.

Just a short trolley ride from the Dali museum is the fourth largest Holocaust museum in the country. The Florida Holocaust Museum takes visitors on a journey from the flourishing pre-war life in eastern Europe, through the events of the Holocaust, concentration camps and, ultimately, the birth of the state of Israel, giving a detailed history of the Jewish religion. Dedicated to teaching tolerance and diversity through the lessons of the Holocaust, the museum's core exhibit comprises hundreds of digitized images and historical and cultural artifacts and Auschwitz Boxcar #113 0695-5, one of the few remaining cars once used to transport prisoners to concentration camps.

The next stop on the trolley route is the Florida International Museum. Since opening in 1995, this museum has been host to five blockbuster exhibitions, including Treasures of the Czars, Splendors of Ancient Egypt, Alexander the Great, Titanic: The Exhibition and Empires of Mystery: The Incas, The Andes, and Lost Civilizations. The next mega-exhibit coming to the Florida International Museum (November 1999) is John F. Kennedy: The Exhibition, which will showcase items from the world's largest private collection of Kennedy memorabilia. The exhibit will cover Kennedy's early political career, rise to the presidency, the Cuban Missile crisis and, of course, his private side as loving husband to Jackie and father to John Jr. and Caroline.

Other stops on the downtown St. Petersburg trolley system include the Museum of Fine Art, Great Explorations Children's Museum and the Pier Aquarium.

Just a short drive from the museums of downtown St. Petersburg, over the magnificent Sunshine Skyway Bridge to Sarasota, is the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. A beautiful Italian Renaissance villa designed as an art museum, it houses one of the world's largest collections of Baroque, Italian and Flemish Renaissance and Old Master paintings, plus exquisite 17th-century tapestries. Next door, the Ringling Residence, Ca' d' Zan (House of John), a 30-room mansion set on scenic Sarasota Bay, is an architectural showcase, modeled after a Venetian Palace. The Museum of the Circus contains memorabilia from the "big top" -- parade wagons, photographs, costumes and colorful posters.

(Information provided by the Tampa/Hillsborough Convention and Visitors Association.)