Sanford town

Sanford is a cute town on beautiful Lake Monroe. It has a lively main strip with cafes along 1st Street, and a long palm tree-lined promenade called Sanford Riverwalk along the lake on Seminole Blvd. The promenade runs two miles from near the corner of W. Seminole Blvd and Mangoustine Ave all the way east to the corner of E. Seminole Blvd and Mellonville Ave. It is a little plain, without any shade, but has a cool bench swing pavilion that is very relaxing.

The Riverwalk passes Fort Mellon Park, a huge park with big old trees with Spanish moss, a pond full of birds, and a gorgeous fort playground that big kids love. The playground has many sections: a ship playground, three tug boat bouncies, baby swings with a view of the water, picnic pavilions, a huge playground with many forts and a gigantic tunnel slide, monkey bars, twisty slide, climbing areas where you hold a rope, a space age rope climby, two black horse bouncies, and more!
Next door to Fort Mellon Park is Sanford Museum, a history museum. You also pass Veterans Memorial Park, which juts out into the water and is lined with wonderful canary palms, and filled with interesting birds. Here you can read about many different wars and Sanford's role in them. The views over the water are wonderful. There are benches where you can sit and watch the boats in the nearby marina bobbing on the water. There is plenty of palm-shaded grass where you could have a picnic by the water. Check out the St Johns Rivership, a steamboat, that departs from the marina.
1st Street, the main strip in Sanford, is two blocks (sometimes one block) back from Seminole Blvd. Here you will find many cute cafes. A super fun thing to do in Sanford is eat at Hollerbach's Willow Tree Cafe, especially when they have live oom pa pa music which makes you feel like you're really in Germany! German music has the sweetest melodies! The live music is every week Thurs-Sun from 5-8pm. On New Year's Eve you can get your festive feeling without waiting till midnight, since Germany celebrates at 6pm our time! Hollerbach's does the countdown to the new year at 6pm!
Along 1st Street there is an ice cream shop called Wondermade, an Irish pub called Sullivan-A Public House, a tropical bar and grill called Breezeway, a cocktail bar with great ambience called The Imperial at Washburn Imports, and plenty more places to choose from. 1st Street is lit up beautifully at Christmastime. It is a little rundown in some places, but most historic towns are like this.
Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens is another fun thing to do in Sanford.
On the north side of Lake Monroe is the town of Deltona, where you can check out Lakeshore Drive and the Lake Monroe Boat Ramp, plus Green Springs Park.

Directions

1st Street is the main strip in Sanford. There is a parking lot at 101 N. Sanford Ave which is close to all the cafes and also close to Veterans Memorial Park and the long Riverwalk promenade along Seminole Blvd.

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