We’ve been to the San Diego area a handful of times over the last 30 years, and yet we barely know the city and its attractions. I tried to rectify that a bit on the most recent visit last spring by setting aside time to explore Balboa Park. The huge…
We spent the majority of our California trip last March in the parts of San Diego County that are home to one of the youngest established viticultural areas in the country – the San Luis Rey AVA. We may no longer be the wine aficionados on the same scale as…
Museums are always a feature in my traveling itineraries. Art collections claim the top priority, but nearly any aspect of human history, endeavor, and achievement is bound to be of interest to me in a museum setting. When researching things to do in the north of San Diego County, I…
Wait, what!? Wasn’t the most recent announcement about the return from Greece? What does California have to do with that? Back in March, we were privileged to attend a wedding of one of our beloved cousins in the San Diego area. I don’t like traveling long distances for just one…
Among the flow of news of terrible destruction suffered by Los Angeles’ neighborhoods in ongoing wildfires, I found a bit about the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, which avoided significant damage due to its state-of-the-art fire prevention systems. It prompted me to review my pictures of it from our trip…
We tacked a few hours of San Francisco sightseeing at the beginning of our recent trip to the California wine country. That time is hardly sufficient to explore anything in depth, but as this was not our first visit to the city – just a first one in many years…
In addition to spending time in Napa, we also explored its less glamorous neighbor Sonoma. There are decidedly fewer people, lower wine-tasting expenses (including a couple of places that offer complimentary tastings), but also more muted scenery. The latter was not aided by the fact that the weather turned drab…
The law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty quickly when you hop from one wine tasting to another and, like me, never use the spitoon unless you actively dislike the wine that you are tasting. After a couple of flights, distinguishing characteristics of any given wine become nearly impossible to…
For a variety of reasons, taking a ride in a hot-air balloon never featured in our past travels. I can make many excuses for that, but the fact remains that we were missing out on something pretty breathtaking. And we were aware of that gap on our traveling resume, by…
I visited San Francisco several times in the early aughts, but my last visit there has been over a decade ago. My photographic archives of the city are very limited. Nonetheless, I do possess one shot that perfectly summarizes how I recall San Francisco. The hill-climbing topography of San…