The city of shining skyscrapers, Tampa in Florida, is perfect for an outdoor holiday
I BARELY notice the dorsal fins beside me, glinting in the Florida sunshine, as I paddleboard along Hillsborough River.
"Dolphins" cries instructor Mike, pointing his paddle.
I freeze, wide-eyed, as three cut through the water right next to my board. We paddle closer to watch them play — flashes of silver beneath the surface, before they disappear back downriver to Tampa Bay.
And all this at the heart of Tampa, city of shiny skyscrapers on Florida's Gulf Coast.
For years, it has been overlooked by Brit tourists to the Sunshine State, who prefer the theme parks of Orlando or pristine beaches of Miami.
No more. Tampa is gaining a reputation for its outdoor lifestyle, historic and cultural offerings and impressive food.
During my paddleboard tour, Mike points out landmarks. We float past the silver spires and domes of the Henry B. Plant Museum, the first building in Florida to be completely electrified and now part of the University of Tampa. It was built as a hotel by Plant, the man who brought the railroad here to transport cigars, an industry that turned Tampa into a boom town.
The Florida Aquarium, Tampa History Center and Tampa Museum of Art are also riverside — and you can now walk or cycle between them on the Tampa Riverwalk, below.
Having worked up an appetite, I stroll down the Riverwalk to Ulele, a restaurant in a restored water pumphouse. It is filled with £5.6million worth of art and other treasures, including a Picasso sketch and signed pair of Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves.
The menu is inspired by Tampa's early native and Spanish explorers. I try the okra fries and alligator hush-puppies (deepfried balls of alligator meat, bacon and corn). Delicious. I then catch a yellow streetcar to Ybor City, Tampa's Latin quarter, which stars in new Ben Affleck crime movie Live By Night.
Set in the Twenties and Thirties, the film tells the story of a bootlegger-gangster after moving to Ybor.
It is adapted from the novel of the same name and its author Dennis Lehane took a Mafia Tour of Ybor before penning it.
I meet Scott Deitche, who runs these tours, outside one of Ybor's many cigar shops, where workers sit rolling tobacco. Scott tells how this district is named after Cuban exile Don Vicente Martinez Ybor, who brought his cigar firm here from Key West in 1885. It has long been on the tourist trail as "Cigar Capital of the World", with 700million a year rolled here at its peak in 1927.
A century ago, Scott says, the skyline was smeared bronze by factory smoke and people would have smoked 15 cigars a day.
Nowadays, Ybor is noted for its galleries, bars and clubs, converted from derelict warehouses in the Eighties. But it was also a crime hotbed, particularly in America's Prohibition years of banned booze. "That put Tampa on the map," Scott says, with its port ideal for bringing in illicit booze such as Cuban rum. Tunnels are said to lie beneath Ybor, once used by smugglers.
We pass two-storey buildings with wrought-iron balconies and Scott says: "Two storeys would help conceal crime.
"You'd have your respectable shop visible on the ground floor and use the second for distilling alcohol or gambling."
Thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Spain, Italy and Germany lived crushed together here during the cigar heydey, and the different nationalities had their own social clubs.
We stop outside the pillared Cuban Club, said to be haunted by the ghost of an eight-year-old boy who drowned in its pool.
With Scott's tales of ghosts and gangland killings ringing in my ears, I head back to my hotel, Le Méridien — once a courthouse. Now a 130-room hotel, it retains many of its original features, including tiled floors, coffered ceilings and witness stands that now serve as tables. At breakfast in its French-style Bizou Brasserie, I load up on pastries and fresh berries.
Next up is more paddling on the Hillsborough River — but this time I swap my board for a canoe and dolphins for alligators.
Moments into the two-hour tour, floating past moss-draped cypress trees, I spot my first 'gator. It eyes me warily as I paddle past, heart in mouth.
We then round the bend and there's another, basking on the bank. My chest pounding, this thrill rivals any you could get from a theme-park rollercoaster.
I then need to settle my nerves, so head downtown to the Cigar City Brewing Co to sample tipples, from espresso-infused brown beer to the firm favourite, Jai Alai IPA.
The food scene in Tampa is also impressive — and it is not just Floridian surf'n'turf on the menu.
Hipster hangout the Oxford Exchange is a bookstore-cum-café and Tampa's top breakfast spot, filled with coffee-drinking locals. It serves the best pancakes I have ever tasted
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Bern's Steak House features Seventies-style decor and one of the world's largest wine collections. Downstairs is a carnivore's paradise, while upstairs there is a Dessert Room where you can devour Banana Cream Pie in private booths.
Another foodie area is Seminole Heights — Tampa's answer to Brooklyn. I try new restaurant Rooster & The Till, where I sit at the bar and scoff oystersAY. There is still time for a nightcap at Ciros, a darkened speakeasy where you whisper a password through a hatch to gain entry.
Inside, I am transported to the Prohibition era — with dim lights, Chesterfield sofas and jazz drifting through the air.
Sipping a Vesper martini, I have sneaked a peek at a hidden gem of the Sunshine State.
GO: TAMPA BAY
GETTING THERE: BA flies daily from Gatwick to Tampa, from £430 return including taxes and charges. See or call 0344 494 0787.
STAYING THERE: Le Meridien Tampa rooms are from £125 a night. See .
MORE INFORMATION: See ; ; for paddleboarding ; and .