Los Angeles & Southern California - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [238]
Wrapping southeast along the Embarcadero Marina Park – where there’s a public fishing pier and an open-air amphitheater with free summer concerts – you’ll see the ‘sails’ of the San Diego Convention Center (Map; 619-525-5000; www.sdccc.org; Harbor Dr). This structure, stretching for half a mile, was designed by Canadian avant-garde architect Arthur Erickson and opened in 1989. It books out five years in advance with close to a million visitors annually. Two hours free parking with validation.
Balboa Park
With its museums, gardens and world-famous zoo, Balboa Park tops the list of sights in the downtown area. Its name honors the Spanish conquistador believed to be the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean.
Maps from 1868 show that Alonzo Horton’s plans for San Diego included a 1400-acre City Park at the northeastern corner of what was to become Downtown. Ever the businessman, Horton enhanced the value of the land by restricting development here, although at the time it was all bare hilltops, chaparral and steep-sided arroyos (water-carved gullies).
Enter Kate O Sessions, a UC Berkeley botany graduate who in 1892 started a nursery on the site to landscape fashionable gardens for the city’s emerging elite. The city granted her 30 acres of land in return for planting 100 trees a year in the park and donating 300 more for placement throughout the city. By the early 20th century, Balboa Park had become a well-loved part of San Diego.
In 1915–16, San Diego hosted the Panama–California Exposition (Click here), much of which took place in Balboa Park. New Yorkers Bertram Goodhue and Carlton Winslow designed the expo’s pavilions in a romantic, Spanish Colonial style with beaux-arts and baroque flourishes. The pavilions were meant to be temporary – constructed largely of stucco, chicken wire, plaster, hemp and horsehair – but they proved so popular that many were later replaced with durable concrete structures in the same style. These buildings now house the museums along El Prado, the main pedestrian thoroughfare in the park.
Another expo, the 1935 Pacific–California Exposition, brought new buildings southwest of El Prado around the Pan-American Plaza. The Spanish Colonial architectural theme was expanded to include the whole New World, from indigenous styles (some of the buildings had Pueblo Indian and Mayan influences) through to the 20th century.
The San Diego Zoo occupies 100 acres in the north of Balboa Park.
ORIENTATION & INFORMATION
You can stroll around Balboa Park any time, but use common sense after dark. To visit all the museums and attractions would take days so plan carefully. Start at the Balboa Park Visitors Center (Map; 619-239-0512; www.balboapark.org; 1549 El Prado; 9:30am-4:30pm), in the House of Hospitality, where you can pick up a good park map (suggested donation $1) and buy admission passes; among them are the Passport to Balboa Park (good for one-time entry to the park’s 13 museums within one week of purchase adult/child $35/19) and the Combo Pass (Passport plus zoo admission adult/child $59/33). Some museums occasionally have free Tuesday admission, though that’s often restricted to local residents.
Balboa Park is easily reached from Downtown on bus 7, 7A or 7B along Park Blvd. By car, Park Blvd provides easy access to free parking areas near most of the exhibits, but the most scenic approach is over the Cabrillo Bridge from the west. El Prado is an extension of Laurel St, which crosses Cabrillo Bridge with the Cabrillo Fwy (CA163) 120ft below. Make a point of driving this stretch of freeway: the steep roadsides, lush with hanging greenery, look like a rain-forest gorge.
The free Balboa Park Tram bus stops at various points on a continuous loop through the main areas of the park. However, it’s easiest and most enjoyable to walk.
SAN DIEGO ZOO
This justifiably famous zoo is one of SoCal’s biggest attractions, showing more than 3000 animals, representing over 800 species in a beautifully landscaped setting, typically in enclosures that replicate their