Pioneer Park hosts many events throughout the year including the much anticipated, monthly Creative Art Guild Shows and the weekend Downtown Markets, both running through the Winter Season months. (Find links for both below.) Main Street also hosts several well attended art and craft shows during the year with artists and vendors coming in from all over the Southeast.

When the Park is not having an event, it’s a perfect, shady place to stop and rest while visiting the Main Street establishments. The Park has a large bandstand which also has entertainment from time to time. There is a very large and free parking lot just a short way South of Main Steet and also on Douglas Avenue.

As you walk West on Main from the Park – toward the Gulf and Marina - there are restaurants on the left and the path for the 45 mile Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail passes across Main Street beside the Museum. The Pinellas Trail is a destination for hikers and bikers and runs from Tarpon Springs in the North to St. Petersburg in the South.

Make it a point to stop in the Dunedin History Museum. You’ll find an interesting gift shop (you might even note some of our nature themed photo greeting cards for sale!) The Museum offers changing exhibits about the history of the city and its ties to pirates, orange groves, a railroad and much more.

There are some very interesting shops to peruse as you continue West. Nearing the traffic light at the corner of Main and Broadway (Alt 19) you may decide you need a cool and tasty dish or cone at Strachan’s Ice Cream Shop. Niki and I tend to lean towards hot fudge sundaes but no matter - it’s all good. Then enjoy your ice cream as you stroll the Walk of Honor in Dunedin’s Purple Heart Park just beside Strachan’s at 300 Main Street. Along the walkway there are benches, a monument and commemorative bricks.

Walking just a little way South on Broadway, under the “Defending Freedom” arch, will bring you to more browsing among the “Shops on Broadway” and more fine eateries as well. Do check out Stirling Art Gallery and Studios – a place near and dear to our hearts. Many of our friends are excellent artists and exhibit here. Find it on the second floor around to the back of the building that Rosie’s Tavern is in. There are stairs or an elevator. There is a new exhibit nearly monthly. You can view the art and talk with the artists in their studios. Nice people, friendly people. This is also the home of the Penny Lane Beatles Museum.

Now, walking farther West on Main toward the Marina you will pass Armstron Park and more unique shops. Since you are no doubt tired by now, as we are, we will save the big Park and the Marina at the very West end of Main Street for another time – but soon, we promise.

If you have never visited Main Street in Dunedin then you should make a point to do so. You will find it so much more than the attributes we have only touched on today. In the hustle and bustle of our world this is a colorful and quiet small part of life on Main Street America that lives and thrives and gives us all hope for the future.