FEATURE CALIFORNIA: NORTH & SOUTH
With private villas, a spa and Jacuzzi tubs, it’s one of Southern California’s most in-demand venues for weddings. Temecula’s other draw card is its Old
Town (
www.oldtowntemecula.com), which has been around since 1882 when the California Railroad came through the valley and local investors created the first bank. Today it’s a unique street with a way-out-west feel, with one-off restaurants – including the Swing Café diner, which dates back to 1926 – speciality stores, exclusive boutiques, art galleries and a myriad of antiques stores. It’s the sort of town that hosts quilt
festivals and stages Western Days where gunfighters take part in shoot-outs, staged fights, gun safety shows, and other fun stuff. It’s also an epicurean’s delight: walking
from Pelican Hill’s own pasta kitchen.
A couple of hours south, San Diego is benefitting from British Airways' third stab at a service out of London. The airport provides one of the shortest transfers downtown of any US city – a 10-minute drive. San Diego is an attractive city with
several faces and we stayed a few miles north, in Mission Bay, which is the largest man-made aquatic park in the country. Engineers finished completing the saltwater bay and lagoon in the 1950s, in the face of opposition from conservationists. But their fears proved unfounded and the pelicans, egrets, cormorants and other birdlife are now thriving along with the jet-skiers, wake- boarders and sailors. Mission Bay is also the home of
SeaWorld (
www.seaworldparks. com), which recently opened its newest attraction, Turtle Reef, described as an 'interactive and immersive experience'. We spent the evening at a ‘ball game’,
in San Diego’s attractive Petco Park, located close to the water and the Gaslamp District, two blocks of restaurants and lively bars which visitors can get around via a tuk tuk. We then wandered down Broadway,
to North Harbour Drive, to San Diego’s most-visited attractions, the USS Midway (
www.midway.org). The vessel that served as the Persian Gulf flagship in Desert Storm is now a museum with 25 restored aircraft, 60 exhibits, a flight
This page: Waterworld, Universal Studios; Long Beach; Gaslamp District, San Diego; USS Midway; Next page: Baseball at Petco Park
32 October 2011 •
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simulator and a restaurant. San Diego’s key role in US Navy operations – Naval Base San Diego is the principal home port of the Pacific Fleet, with more than 50 ships, about one sixth of the entire U.S. fleet – can be appreciated by taking a Flagship Cruises (
www.flagshipsd.com) tour and dinner. Over prime rib and live music we
spent three hours on San Diego Harbour, passing rows of battleships, transporters and medical ships. Next day we headed a few miles
north to the attractive coastal town of La Jolla and spent the morning in the company of David Teafatiller, owner of Hike, Bike and Kayak (www.
hikebikekayak.com). Starting at The Soledad War Memorial,
which offers a 360-degree view of La Jolla and Torrey Pines in the distance, we cycled down to the seafront – taking on the steep 3.5-mile La Jolla Plunge – bottoming out in leafy and pricey residential Pacific Beach before cutting towards the coastal trail and landmarks like Bird Rock, where surfers were waiting for the next big wave, and Kids Beach, which was free of kids but was packed with fur seals of various sizes. We then got onto our ‘sit-on-top’
ocean kayaks for a two-hour ocean experience. No kayak experience is necessary, although a sense of balance comes in handy for paddling through and beyond the breaking waters into La Jolla Ecological Reserve. As we paddled through kelp we looked for leopard sharks and Garibaldi, the brightly coloured orange fish which is protected
in California. Squadrons of pelicans flew overhead as we headed into La Jolla Caves, where cormorants watched us from their guano-covered cliff dwellings. After a fun morning in the saddle and
on the paddle we stopped for lunch at Brockton Villa (
www.brocktonvilla. com), a La Jolla institution known for its signature Coast Toast (French toast with Orange/Wisconsin maple syrup) and its 25 (secret)-ingredient clam chowder. An hour north of San Diego, just as
the traffic begins to thin on I-15 and the green hills studded with expensive villas start to fade, Southern California’s little- known wine country begins. Temecula is not one of California’s
best known wine-producing areas but there’s a cluster of 20 pretty wineries in this valley community. We stopped at Wilson Creek, known
for its unique Almond Champagne, and Callaway, Temecula’s first winery. At South Coast Winery we had lunch at the estate’s award-winning restaurant.
down Main Street we were offered cheese and wine tasting and invited to sample a range of vinegars and oils made by the Temecula Olive Oil Company. Other activities in Temecula include horse riding, hot air ballooning, golf and cycling tours. The 70-mile drive to Palm Springs,
along the Temecula Parkway, is a scenic one, past family ranches with white picket fences, wilderness camping areas, roadside stalls selling alfalfa sprouts and places like the Stagecoach Inn offering ‘Beers to go’ and ‘Big Moe’s Smoke Stop’. You cross rivers and creeks and pass the Cahuilla Indian Reservation, with its casino offering ‘hot slots’, before entering the San Bernardino National Forest, with its ponderosa pines and western junipers, and the Santa Rosa Indian Reservation, The road then begins its long descent
into the Coachella Valley, to the desert cities that include Palm Springs, Indian Wells and Rancho Mirage. Palm Springs is a great choice for a desert escape that can feature spas,
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