After Los Angeles, we had a 2-day drive north to San Francisco through the Highway 1, which is the Coast Highway. We started the journey with a small incident, as we got a flat tyre when trying to leave one of the beaches in Los Angeles. Anyway, we just “lost” a couple of hours as we had to get a new car in the airport. In our way north, we stopped in the Malibu wharf, and in Santa Barbara, a nice town, with also an impressive wharf, being the oldest in this coast. We stayed in San Luis Obispo, a student city very well located, and less expensive than the coast towns.
The sixth day started in Morro Bay, a small fishing town, with a volcanic cone in its bay, and with a long tradition of surfing. We continued following again the Highway 1 north, enjoying the amazing oceanic coast, with a beach home of a couple of hundreds sea lions who go there to breed and change their skins. To make it (even) more interesting, the coast at this part became hillier, and there are a couple of viewpoints worth to stop and enjoy. Our next stop was Santa Cruz, famous for surfers clothes, but whose main attraction is the Boardwalk, which is an amusement park on the seaside.
And we finally arrived to San Francisco, and we started with the very basics and essential: the Golden Gate bridge. I had the impression it is far apart from San Francisco downtown, which was correct, but we were lucky to be staying next to it and we could see it several times. Well, “seeing” might be too optimistic, as we only saw it partially covered by the fog one day, and fully covered the day after. The locals say summer is the worst time of the year to visit SF as it becomes quite chillier and the fog is more frequent. Crossing the bridge by bike is one of those musts San Francisco has, and combining it with having lunch in Sausalito (one of the best burgers place according to local recommendations is there) and taking the ferry back to downtown makes a great roundtrip, and gives you the chance of seeing Alcatraz from a closer distance.
But San Francisco is not only about the bridge, it is also about the skyscrapers in downtown, and the hundreds of hills in all directions which makes you confused about where you are heading to, and which are also quite fun to drive up or down (a bit tough to walk, though!). San Francisco is also close to the well known Silicon Valley, home of most of the new Internet and technology companies, like Google, or Apple, and we also payed a geeky visit there.
I fully recommend to visit this area, and if possible, make even a longer trip to either visit more things (nature is all around, vineyards too) or enjoy more the coast towns, where life passes by slowlier than in the big cities.
Las Vegas is an interesting place to be once in a lifetime. A city in the middle of the desert, which has based their economy in taking advantage of a difference in the law among States in the US (gambling is only permitted in Nevada) since 1930’s.
An amusement park for adults, they use as a motto: “Do whatever you wouldn’t do at home”, and they complete the picture with tematic hotels, full of casinos, restaurants and shops, with constant light making you feel it’s always nightime, in order to make sure your appeal to consume is as high as possible. I am glad to say that I got benefits from the small amount I “invested” in the Roulette.
We drove to Los Angeles the fourth day. We had been told Los Angeles was quite deceiving, and hence we only programmed half day there.
A quick visit to the Walk of Fame in Hollywood Blvd, uphill to Hollywood Hills (where the famous sign is still presiding), and then down to Beverly Hills to check the huge houses of some well off film industry professionals. Impressive.
Based on the excuse of visiting a friend living in San Franciasco, we organized a 10-day trip around California and hitting Las Vegas as well. A lot of miles (they don’t use kilometres over there) with what they consider a “too small” car (Ford Focus, Kia Soul), including nature (Yosemite Park, and the Central Coast), desert (Death Valley), craziness (Las Vegas), big cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco) and coast towns (Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, etc).
I will split the trip in three different posts to make it more readable, and make the pictures also viewable without falling asleep. The first part covers Yosemite and Death Valley, the second will take from Las Vegas to half of Central Coast, and the last part will cover the second part of the Central Coast to San Francisco.
The first day we visited Yosemite. It is one of the famous National Parks in United States and its fame is very well deserved.
The park surrounds the Valley, which is the result from the presence of a glaciar 10 million years ago, and which now is full of trees, and surrounded by steep granite walls, where waterfalls find their way out (or down).
The day after it was time to drive to Las Vegas. Long drive through the desert in Nevada State, and also a quick visit to the deepest point in North America, in Death Valley (which you may guess it is not full of life).
I liked the experience of being in the middle of nowhere for real. We crossed just a couple of small towns, with very long distances among them, and which made you reflect, how it would be living over there, especially when we looked to the steady outside temperature over 40ºC.
