Old Town Key West Walk

Welcome to Key West, and to Mallory Square, a waterfront plaza in the historic Old Town, just west of the northern end of Duval Street. It faces the Gulf of Mexico, which makes it the stage for Key West's Sunset Celebration, one of the city's main attractions. Every day of the year, starting two hours before sunset, hundreds of visitors gather here to watch the sun go down. When the city opened a cruise ship pier right on the square in 1984, many people worried it would ruin the sunset tradition.

So the city passed an ordinance requiring cruise ships to leave port two hours before sunset, letting them return afterward without an extra docking fee. Take a look at the Key West Historic Memorial Sculpture Garden here. It has a 20-foot monument called The Wreckers and 39 bronze busts of people who shaped Key West, all sculpted by James Mastin. Among them are Henry Flagler, Ernest Hemingway, Harry S.

Truman and Tennessee Williams. Next to the square are the Shipwreck Historeum Museum and the old Customshouse.

This is the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, home to an extensive collection of artifacts from 17th-century shipwrecks, including the Nuestra Señora de Atocha and the Santa Margarita. It also holds finds from the Santa Clara, a galleon from 1564, and from the Henrietta Marie, a slave ship. The museum is named for its founder, Mel Fisher, but it was set up as a non-profit charity, so Fisher's fortune isn't financially linked to it. It's a museum, a working lab and a nationally recognized research facility.

Inside is a fully operating conservation and archaeology lab. Depending on their material, some artifacts can take anywhere from weeks to years to conserve before they go on display. Upstairs, exhibits have covered a group of freed slaves in Key West in 1860, and Cuban rafters, called balseros, who reached Key West on handmade boats. For years, a favorite feature was a solid gold bar that visitors could lift inside a plexiglass case.

In 2010 two thieves stole it and cut it up. Only one piece was ever recovered.