San Diego

We arrived in San Diego frayed from the noise of Los Angeles, and the city took the tension out of us almost immediately. There is a softness to the air here, a warmth without weight, and by the third day I had stopped checking the forecast because there was nothing to check; it was going to be clear and mild, as it apparently always is. Lia said it felt like the whole city had collectively decided not to worry, and standing barefoot on the sand at Coronado with the skyline shining across the bay, I could not find a single reason to argue.

Balboa Park

I had not expected San Diego to have a cultural heart like Balboa Park, and it quietly stole a whole day from us. We wandered its Spanish-Colonial courtyards and tiled fountains, ducking into museums and out again, past the great domed pavilion where an organist was playing to a scatter of pensioners in the sun. Lia lost herself in the botanical building, a lath-walled greenhouse dripping with orchids and ferns, while I sat under a jacaranda and watched the light move. The famous zoo is here too, but we were happy just walking the gardens, and by late afternoon we had barely seen a fraction of it.

La Jolla and the Sea Lions

The coast north of the city, at La Jolla, gave us the afternoon we still talk about. We walked the cliff path above the coves and came upon the sea lions hauled out on the rocks below, barking and shoving and lying in heaps in the sun, entirely indifferent to the crowd of us leaning over the railing. The smell was frankly appalling and neither of us cared. Farther along, cormorants dried their wings on the cliffs and the Pacific heaved against the sandstone. Lia bought an ice cream and we sat on a bench watching a pod of the animals surf the shore break, and I forgot to be a cynical European for an hour.

Old Town and the Border Flavor

San Diego sits an easy drive from Mexico, and you taste it everywhere. We ate the best fish tacos of the whole trip at a scruffy counter in Old Town, the fish fried crisp, the crema and cabbage piled on, and I went back for a second before Lia had finished her first. The old adobe quarter around us was touristy but charming, mariachi drifting between the courtyards, strings of chili lights, the smell of masa on the griddle. Living in Mexico as we do, it was oddly moving to find its flavors woven so naturally into a California city, less a border here than a seam.

Getting There

San Diego International sits remarkably close to downtown, its runway almost brushing the skyline, which makes arriving here refreshingly painless. Many travelers also drive down from Los Angeles, about two hours south on the I-5 when traffic behaves, and the coastal route through the beach towns is worth the extra time. The city is more walkable than most of Southern California in its central pockets, but a car helps for reaching La Jolla and the northern beaches. We stayed near Little Italy, walkable and full of good restaurants, and used it as a base for slow days. Come without a rigid plan; San Diego rewards drifting.