San Diego part II 25.5-26.5

Gaslamp Quarter

The Gaslamp Quarter is a national historic district that offers a variety of restaurants and shops, as well as Victorian architecture.

Una historia para Eva: At the Thai restaurant: Oliver orders a spicy dish. The waitress asks: “On a scale of one to ten, how spicy would you like your dish?” I almost burst into laughter 😂… 🤭

Balboa Park

Balboa Park is made up of more than 1,000 acres and offers 15 museums, various gardens, arts displays, shady groves of trees and meandering paths through rolling lawns.

We totally enjoyed spending a couple of hours there. 🙂

Old Town is the historic heart of San Diego and a must see if you are into historic sites. Created in 1769, Old Town San Diego was California’s first settlement with only a mission and a fort.

Here you can experience life from the early Mexican-American period of 1821-1872.

You can also browse the market and the many shops or dine in one of the many specialty restaurants.

Heritage Park

As we were already in the area, we also visited Heritage County Park. It is a park located near Old Town San Diego and measuring almost eight acres. Heritage park was developed to preserve examples of San Diego’s historic Victorian architecture including Italianate, Stick-Eastlake, Queen Anne and classic revival styles. The properties were all relocated from their original locations. 😯

Cabrillo

Before heading to our next destination we stopped in Cabrillo for a while to enjoy the views and learn about San Diego’s history.

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo led the first European expedition that explored what is now the west coast of the United States. Cabrillo departed from the port of Navidad, Mexico on June 27, 1542. Three months later he arrived at “a very good enclosed port,” which is known today as San Diego Bay.

Historians believe he anchored his flagship, the San Salvador, on Point Loma’s east shore near the land that becomes Cabrillo National Monument. Cabrillo later died during the expedition, but his crew continued on, possibly as far north as Oregon, before thrashing winter storms forced them back to Mexico.

Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery is located on the Fort Rosecrans Military Reservation, 10 miles west of San Diego, California. It was one of seven national cemeteries created between world wars, 1934–1939. It was the Army’s first major expansion since the Civil War directed at serving a growing veteran population and the rapidly depleting burial space at existing national cemeteries. Unlike previous new cemeteries, locations were based on veterans’ places of residence, especially in or near large cities.

La Jolla Cove

La Jolla Cove is a small, ecologically protected cove with a beach that is surrounded by picturesque sandstone bluffs. Gulls, cormorants, sea lions, and native plants line these bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, making this one of the most pretty and photographed areas in Southern California. (La Jolla is referred to as “The Jewel” after all.)