On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Looks like someone (named WaterGirl) forgot to schedule OTR posts for this week. No, I am not at all distracted by the upcoming election, why do you ask?
Here’s what we’ve got scheduled for the rest of the week.
frosty
We didn’t do a lot of sightseeing… the cruise ships are one reason. There were lines at the Aquarium and Treasure Museum so we decided to pass on them. But somehow the cruise passengers missed this place! This was the first time we had been in Key West when there wasn’t a line out the door waiting to tour the house, so with plenty of time to spare we took the opportunity. Hemingway wrote many of his most famous books when he was here. He lived in Paris, Key West, Cuba, and Idaho.
Front of the house
Cats are everywhere, mostly sleeping
Cat on a windowsill
I suspect there’s a competition among them to find the strangest place for a nap. A rain gutter?
One of the famous six-toed cats
This looks like our bathroom at home, but it’s a bit more modern. We have a clawfoot tub with the same shower setup. No cat, though.
The study where he wrote from 6:00 in the morning until noon
Brick walkway. The bricks were made in Baltimore, used for street paving, then when they were removed, Hemingway used them to build a wall (to keep the gawkers out) and for paths in the garden.
View of Key West Lighthouse from the wraparound upstairs porch
One room had pictures of his four wives. Martha Gellhorn was his Cuba wife. She was an accomplished author and war correspondent, covering every major war from the Spanish Civil War to the Central American wars in the 80s. The book of her dispatches (The Face of War) is excellent. I look at this picture and think about Hemingway watching the Normandy landing through binoculars along with every one of the hundreds of credentialed correspondents, while his wife stowed away on a hospital ship, worked with the nurses, then went ashore on Omaha Beach after nightfall and worked as a stretcher bearer. She was also the only one of his wives who left him.
eclare
Thanks for these photos, especially of the kitties that I’ve heard so much about!
Winter Wren
The Hemingway House is a must-visit in Key West; we have been multiple times. The guides are always great and tell lots of different interesting anecdotes. And the cats rule the place!
Bg
One of tge best things to do in Key West is to walk around the old streets and alleys in Old Town and look at the architecture. Key West has its own style. Lots of different patterns in tge gingerbread, the wood that decorates the outside of the older houses
Elma
We stopped in Key West on one of those cruise ships. We took my grandchildren, already seasoned cruisers at 2 and 4 YOA, to the Hemmingway house for the six-toed kitties. Did not make any attempt to follow the tour guides. Rather, we looked for kitty hiding places. A wonderful time was had by old and young alike.
mvr
Thanks for these photos!
It looks like a pleasant house to live in.
You must have a cool bathroom if yours is like that one. It is nice when the bathroom is a calm place. We have an old (teens) house which came with a trashed 1970s bathroom, that we then spend a year returning to a period look with scavenged fixtures and cabinets, including a clawfoot tube and old style toilet and period tile. .
KSinMA
Thanks for the photos. Nice place!
Chat Noir
Great pictures and descriptions! We visited awhile back and you capture the essence of the place magnificently. I haven’t read Hemingway but I find his life story interesting. And yes! The kitties are central to the place.
StringOnAStick
The story about Martha Gellhorn is a nice touch to contemplate, thank you.
Torrey
Excellent collection of pictures, and interesting story about Gellhorn. But the bathroom? It looks nice, but geez, people! Window coverings?
Yutsano
Hemingway kittehs!!!
Temp Decloaked Lurker
Martha Gellhorn’s sharp and humorous memoir “Travels with Myself and Another” is one of my favorite books ever. The “other” is Hemingway, though he’s in the background. I think of it as a boozy lit version of Absolutely Fabulous.