By far the top attraction here, this 66-acre site is where showman and circus legend John Ringling and his wife, Mable, collected art and built a house on a grand scale. Now under the aegis of Florida State University, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art is the state's official art museum. It's filled with more than 500 years of European and American works, including one of the world's most important collections of 17th-century baroque paintings, collections of decorative arts, and traveling exhibits. The Old Masters collection includes five renowned tapestry cartoons by Peter Paul Rubens. Built in 1924 and 1925 at a cost of $1.5 million and modeled after a Venetian palace, the Ringlings' 32-room palatial bayfront, four-story winter residence, Ca'd'Zan ("House of John" in the Venetian dialect), has been recently restored. An 8,000-square-foot terrace leads down to the dock at which Mable Ringling moored her Venetian gondola. Don't miss a tour of this house to see the period furniture and stunning architecture and artwork.