Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/406441
(top, both photos) rob o'neal photography/the ernest hemingway home and museum, (key lime pie) michael kissinger, sloppy joe's w i n t e r 2 0 1 4 | g o i n g p l a c e s 41 these free-roaming "gypsy chickens" appar- ently descended from those brought over by Cuban settlers in the 1800s, which in turn came from Spain. With the banning of cock- fighting in the 1970s, the population of Key West's charismatic cluckers took flight. As for Blue Heaven, lore has it the property once hosted cockfighting, gambling and Friday night boxing matches refereed by Ernest Hemingway. e restaurant/bakery also makes a mean lobster benny and gravity-defying key lime pie – perfect for a day of dodging ram- bunctious roosters, boozy introspection and soul searching. Importance of Ernest A few blocks from Blue Heaven, it's hard to miss the Keys' best-known and most-frequented tourist attraction, the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum. e literary giant lived in Key West on and off throughout the 1930s, ini- tially enticed by an invitation to go big-game fishing. But his time in Key West was also pro- ductive, and during his stay he wrote many of his best-known works, including To Have and Have Not, the non-fiction work Green Hills of Africa and short stories e Snows of Kilimanjaro and e Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Visitors can walk the lush grounds, wander through the Spanish colonial estate-style home built in 1851 and peruse Hemingway's writing studio above the pool house. According to Hemingway Home events director Dave Gon- zales, the Nobel Prize-winning writer was not only the godfather of big-game fishing but also a pioneer of the home office and teleworking. So, I guess we have him to blame – or thank – for that. en there's the matter of the 40-plus cats who call the place home. Said to have descended from a cat named Snowball, which Hemingway brought over from Cuba, the famous felines are a tourist attraction in their own right. Half of the cats carry the recessive polydactyl gene and subsequently have six toes. For Whom the Bar Tolls Key West's love for Hemingway goes beyond the cat-scented walls of the Hemingway Home, however. Every year, Sloppy Joe's, a frequent watering hole of the writer, holds a look-alike contest, while the slate of events during the annual Hemingway Days in July includes a tongue-in-cheek running with the bulls, arm-wrestling match, short story com- petition and marlin fishing tournament. What about a drinking contest in honour of Papa's other favourite pastime? "at's 365 days a year here," replies Gonza- les, who has his own ideas about what attracts so many people to the Keys. "It's an energy cen- tre – there's a hidden magical energy here," he says, before launching into his theories about the area's cosmic correlation to constellation patterns. I'm quickly left behind. While it's no magical energy centre, Joe's Tap Room behind the stage of Sloppy Joe's is a welcomed respite from the daily barrage of bar bands playing at the front of the house. During my afternoon visit, a group called the Doerfels (top left) The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum is the Keys' most-frequented tourist attraction; (above) one of the many cats that roam Hemingway's former home, this is Hairy Truman inside the Nobel Prize-winning writer's studio; (below left) a signature dish of key lime pie at the Blue Heaven eatery; (bottom right) would-be Hemingways gather at Sloppy Joe's for the annual look-alike contest. Sail to Key West and Mexico with Celebrity Cruises. Starting from only $459, this five-night cruise departs Feb. 2, 2015. Call CAA Travel to book today.