What is your image of a Costa Rican beach town? Chances are, this picture does not fit your image. This is the courtyard of the Garden Plaza Shopping Center at the entrance to Tamarindo. There are about 30 shops that encircle a series of pools and fountains, above an underground parking garage.The shopping center is anchored by a modern supermarket that is comparable to large grocery stores in the U.S. or Europe. The stores include a furniture/home furnishings store featuring very modern designs. There is a restaurant that proclaims four specialties: Italian, Japanese, Argentinean and Peruvian food.
Come to think of it, in all my travels I have never seen another combination Italian-Japanese-Argentinean-Peruvian restaurant anywhere else. I guess it is the perfect choice if you ask your companion what he or she wants for dinner, and they respond: "I think I'd like some sushi, then some pasta, and a steak right off the parilla, while I am drinking some Pisco sours."
If that sounds like your kind of meal, then perhaps Tamarindo is your kind of place.
That's a quite a beautiful shopping center. I think I may have seen it while it was under construction.
ReplyDeleteDancing queen,
ReplyDeleteIt was under construction until August 2007. It is on the left as you enter town. It is next to the entrance to the Tamarindo Heights development, which is a gated community, and has large stonework framing Balinese statues. I will post a photo of them in the future.