(The following was filed for a Business Week story in November 1990.)

Travel Tips for Super Bowl XXV in Tampa, Florida

By Bob Andelman

Anyone can go to Florida and get a dose of radiation at the white sandy beaches or ricochet on a high-tech rollercoaster. But the fun is in knowing where the locals go while the tourists are crowding the shore and standing on line at theme parks.

In the Tampa Bay area - where palm trees are being planted along the Interstate highways, Latin singing and dancing is being rehearsed for the Bamboleo Festival and taxi drivers are going to charm school to woo visitors to Super Bowl XXV at Tampa Stadium on Jan. 26 - sweet Greek baklava pastry and bottomless cups of Cuban cafe con leche are native treasures.

The "other" bay area in the U.S. charts a diverse ethnic history more than a century old. Ybor City, for example, is Tampa's historic "Latin Quarter." It boasts a tri-lingual population and a newspaper, La Gaceta, that has published weekly in English, Spanish and Italian for nearly 70 years.

Red brick buildings and streets, turn-of-the-century street lamps, wrought-iron balconies and Cuban sandwiches have brought young people back to Ybor in recent years as shoppers and low-rent, high-concept proprietors. To them this as close as Tampa will ever come to growing a Georgetown, Coconut Grove or Greenwich Village.

East Seventh Avenue is a mix of empty storefronts and one-of-a-kind shops such as the Three Birds Bookstore ("Would it kill you to read a book?" asks a sign in the window), La France ("deja vu garmenture"), Dog Eat Dog Art Wear and Uptown Threads. Further down is the Columbia Restaurant, the original in a chain of authentic Spanish restaurants now dotting the state. The Columbia is a marvel of ceramic tile on the outside, cuisine and old world decor on the inside.

Arts and entertainment have become the lifeblood of the new Ybor City. Two dozen art galleries, the Ritz Theater, nightclubs such as Cafe Creole, Tracks and Carmine's, and more than a dozen restaurants have brought the people back. Ybor Square, the site of a one-time cigar factory, is home to a nostalgia market, shops and restaurants; the burgers at Rough Riders are among the best in town. Across the street, Cafe Creole is a taste of the French Quarter with zesty cajun cooking. El Pasaje Plaza, behind the restaurant, is the Bay area's home to live zydeco music played under the stars.

No trip to Ybor City is complete without peering in a shop window to see old men still rolling tobacco leaves by hand into fat cigars. And chowing down on a big Cuban sandwich or black beans and rice at the Silver Ring Cafe or Carmine's on East Seventh is imperative.

Across Tampa Bay, Tarpon Springs is the sponge diving capital of the world and the Sponge Docks tourist attraction draws hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to its 100 shops and exhibits. Sidewalks all through the district are piled high with freshly caught sponges and pretty conch shells. (These are the large, spiral-shelled mollusks friends claim to find on exotic beaches you've never heard of.) And who could resist the ticky-tacky Spongeorama museum and its ancient film demonstrating the art of sponge diving?

In the two dozen Greek restaurants and coffee shops of the district, visitors sample Greek salads and dishes such as pastitsio (lasagna), keftedes (meatballs), dolmades (stuffed grape leaves), kalamari (squid) and baklava (a nutty pastry). Downtown Tarpon, its streets lost in time, has a thriving antiques district. A walk around shady Springs Bayou, with its restored grand mansions and shady waterfront sidewalks, is an excellent stress reliever, particularly at sunset when the Florida sky explodes in brilliant hues of red, orangle, blue and purple.

Should the ocean be your mistress, the most memorable seagoing vessel for let is Captain Memo's bright red Sea Hogge on Clearwater Beach. Memo's two-hour pirate cruises into the Gulf of Mexico come complete with pirate grog, sightseeing - dolphins playfully swimming in the ship's wake - and the colorful captain himself, who loves to climb the ship's mast and cry out at passing yachts, "We're having more fun than you are!"

Kids have it pretty good in the Tampa Bay area, what with the Children's Museum of Tampa, the hurricane simulator at the Museum of Science and Industry and the lush new natural settings at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa. Across the bay in St. Petersburg, Great Explorations-The Hands-On Museum is the kind of places parents resist and kids love, but then the parents have a hard time leaving. Great Explorations is a new wave museum packed full of sight, sound and touch sensations, some high, some low tech. A few blocks away, the Salvador Dali Museum is home to the largest collection of the artist's work in the world.

A lot of the action in Tampa late in January will center around Super Bowl XXV, the silver anniversary NFL championship to be played at Tampa Stadium. Tickets, alas, will be impossible to come by. But never fear - a proliferation of sports bars in the Bay area means no one need watch the big game in their hotel room. More than a dozen pubs offer large screen TVs, multiple sets and sports tickers that flash scores and news the way Dow Jones reports stocks. Sports bars are at least as loud and rowdy as actually being there without having to climb up and down 60 rows to get a cold brew and miss a crucial play. The best in Tampa Bay include the Grandstand in Clearwater, Cheerleaders Cafe in Palm Harbor, the Press Box, Champions and Magadan's Sports Cafe in Tampa. (Magadan's is owned by New York Mets first baseman Dave Magadan.)

Nightlife and club action is spread out across Tampa Bay. Try Biarritz , Equator, Trendz and the Yucatan Liquor Stand for dancing, Brothers for live jazz, the Ringside Cafe and Skipper's Smokehouse for live blues. And for laughs, catch the man whose name is on the neon sign outside Ron Bennington's Comedy Scene in Clearwater. Bennington is half of the top-rated "Ron & Ron" morning team at Tampa rock station WYNF (95 FM).

One of the keys to enjoying a trip to Tampa Bay is to think of the tri-city area - Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater - as one. An example of how this works: Tampa hotels will probably fill up first, but first class, convenient accommodations can also be found in Clearwater, St. Petersburg and along the Suncoast beaches. Toll-free numbers have been set up to assist travelers with activities and hotel information - 1-800-44-TAMPA and 1-800-678-4635.