20.10.2021 - 26.10.2021: San Diego and Surroundings

Calendar

20.10.2021
City tour, Coronado Island, Seaport Village, evening: Gaslamp Quarter: Restaurant Asti

21.10.2021
Harbor tour, La Jolla Cove and Beach, Mission Beach, evening: Outback Steakhouse

22.10.2021
San Diego Zoo, evening: Seaport Village (beer tasting)

23.10.2021
Seaworld San Diego, evening: Mission Beach

24.10.2021
Border Field State Park, border wall to Mexico, Imperial Beach, sunset at the Sunset Cliffs, evening: Ocean Beach

25.10.2021
Rainy day, pizza in Coronado, Balboa Park

26.10.2021
Continued journey to Los Angeles

Highlights

The city tour on the first day gave us a good overview of San Diego and the surrounding area, in the following days we explored some of these 'hotspots' in more detail.

We made a longer stop in Coronado Island. Here stands a famous hotel: the 'Del' with its Beach Village Del Coronado. It served as a film set for the Monroe film 'Some Like It Hot' in the late 1950s. Our accommodation at Hotel Circle couldn't compete with that, but our budget would have suffered too much to stay at the 'Del'. At least we had enough for a drink at the beach bar, although we also declined the $100 lounge chairs.

Right next to the beach bar, film or sound recordings of an apparently well-known American piano virtuoso were made. It was particularly amusing to watch the desperate hairstylist on site trying to fix the interpreter's wind-blown hair between songs. The songs sounded really professional, but unfortunately, we forgot to ask for the artist's name (maybe one of you knows?).

On the harbor tour, we got an impressive view of the downtown area as well as the destructive power of the US Navy: The headquarters of the Navy SEALs is located in San Diego (Coronado). The highlight of the fascinating cruelties is the stealth destroyer US 1000 'Zumwalt'. The ammunition for the two main guns alone is said to cost $16 million per minute during operation.

La Jolla (the jewel) by the Sea, Mission and Ocean Beach are districts of San Diego with very beautiful beaches, ideal for surfers as well. We enjoyed spending time there: there is a lively atmosphere (hang loose) late into the night. Seaport Village (Downtown San Diego) is also great in the evenings, but unfortunately, this charming 'quarter' is planned to be demolished in the coming years to make way for more hotel and business complexes.

We saw impressive shows at the famous San Diego Zoo and Seaworld. The animals in the zoo are kept in extremely spacious enclosures, while Seaworld is more of an amusement park and is therefore focused on commerce, although it is constantly emphasized that they are committed to the welfare of animals and have already saved over 30,000 animals.

You can also watch free-roaming sea lions in La Jolla Cove, but it smells so bad there that you can hardly stand it for more than 10 minutes. It's a wonder that the restaurants located there can survive.

San Diego borders Mexico (Tijuana), unfortunately, we were not allowed to take a trip there with our Camaro. However, we visited the Border Field State Park on the American side. The Friendship Park within it is only open on Saturdays and Sundays between 10 am and 2 pm. Here, separated families have the opportunity to meet and touch each other through the bars with their fingertips. The wall is rather disrespectfully called the 'Tortilla Wall' here. Our 'Röstigraben' (linguistic and cultural divide in Switzerland) cannot compete with that, but that's probably for the best.

On Tuesday, the circle closes: We drive back to Los Angeles to make travel preparations for the next leg (starting on October 30).