Tarpon Springs a Day Trip to Another Time and Place! Part 2

Published on 11/29/20: Part 2 of our Tarpon Springs Sponge Docks post. In short, this day trip is a fascinating immersion into Greek culture and sponging! And all of this is set on a beautiful waterfront backdrop.

Between very large Greek bakeries, authentic restaurants, soap shops, sponge boats/shops, and the many other sights and sounds, the sponge docks are a unique experience you won’t find anywhere else in Florida. Great for a casual afternoon or evening of strolling in and out of the shops while watching the sponge boats prepare their haul. All just 45-55 minutes from St Pete, well worth the drive for something different!

Timing the sponge boats

Note that while sponging is certainly very active here (90% of sea sponges worldwide come from Tarpon Springs), many sponge boats go out weeks at a time, so it takes a bit of luck to catch an active dock of boats unloading.

Here are a few of the great places that we visited:

Sweetie’s Ice Cream Parlor

Hellas Restaurant

Rusty Bellies Waterfront Grill, Inc.

We also saw the Spongeorama Cruise showing people around, seemed like a nice excursion (vast majority of their 223 google reviews are 5 star)

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