Street art shows this American city has more to offer than just beaches

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “Back in the Nineties this area was where all the drug dealers used to be, there was no way you would come here – nowadays the traffic’s bad because it’s so popular.” open image in gallery Street art celebrating the graffiti of Wynwood He drops me off at the Moxy Miami Wynwood, a newly opened hotel at the centre of the district which is as vibrant as the streets surrounding it. open image in gallery Graffiti artist and philosopher Marco us on a Wynwood Buggies tour of the district’s street art “Sure, there was the gangs and Pablo Escobar controlling kilos of cocaine,” he says. open image in gallery A visitor takes a photo of street art in the Wynwood Walls exhibition The next evening, I head to the Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Adrienne Arsht Center – one of the largest performing arts centres in the USA – to experience the other extreme of the arts spectrum, a production by the Miami City Ballet of George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. open image in gallery The Frank Gehry designed New World Center – home of the New World Symphony I am here to watch an opera double-bill of Viktor Ullmann’s The Kaiser Of Atlantis with libretto by Peter Kien and Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins with libretto by Bertolt Brecht.