Orlando

Orlando is the theme-park capital of the world: castles, roller coasters and cheerful queues. The city grew up around them in fifty years, on land that was swamp and orange groves. But Florida takes over again the moment the car parks end. The springs here rise out of a limestone aquifer, and the water is clear enough to show the bottom three metres down: tubes drift with the current at Kelly Park - Rock Springs, swimmers cross the pool at Wekiwa Springs State Park, and manatees gather by the hundred in the run at Blue Spring State Park. Downtown gathers around Lake Eola Park, with its swan-shaped pedalos and its floodlit fountain. The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art holds the largest collection of Tiffany glass in the world, chapel included. An hour east on the coast, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex displays the space shuttle Atlantis and a Saturn V moon rocket lying on its side.