Midwest Adventures: Arts Flourishing In LaPorte County
San Diego Is The Perfect Cruise Port
California Coastal Town Will Have You Wanting To Stay For Extra Days Before Or After Your Trip
USS Midway, a naval museum, in San Diego Bay.
By RANDY MINK Special to the Journal & Topics Newspapers
Tucked in the sunny southwestern corner of the United States, San Diego is perfectly poised to serve cruise vacationers. An enviable Mediterranean climate---perhaps the most ideal anywhere---and the laidback California lifestyle entice travelers to stay a while before or after their Mexico, Hawaii, or Panama Canal cruise.
The downtown waterfront showcases the city's connections to the sea, offering so much to do that visitors have little reason to walk far from the cruise ship terminal on San Diego Bay. The Gaslamp Quarter, loaded with top restaurants and music clubs in well-preserved Victorian buildings, lies minutes away.
San Diego, America's eighth largest city and the fastest growing cruise port on the West Coast, offers a much more vibrant, tourist-friendly downtown than it did just 10 years ago. Much of the action takes place on the Embarcadero, a bayfront stretch where cruise vessels dock. Along this palm-lined promenade you can board an excursion boat, roam the decks of historic ships, ride in a pedicab, or watch the marine traffic from a bench or seafood eatery.
The Embarcadero's star attraction is the USS Midway, a decommissioned aircraft carrier that opened at Navy Pier as a museum in 2004. The carrier's 47-year odyssey, stretching from 1945 through the liberation of Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm, kept it "at the sword tip of American defense," in the words of the narrator on the self-guided audio tour. Once the largest ship in the world and the first too large for the Panama Canal, the mighty Midway (named after the 1942 World War II battle in the Pacific) was the longest serving U.S. carrier and today is the nation's most visited naval ship museum.
Visitors need three hours to explore the Midway, from displays of restored aircraft on the four-acre flight deck to the living and work areas that a crew of 4,500 called home. The audio tour, featuring veterans' reminiscences, guides you from the engine room to the sailors' bunks, the sick bay to the admiral's war room. The chapel, laundry, post office and barber shop each have their own stories to tell. More than 60 exhibits, plus historical videos and flight simulator rides, keep guests engaged.
The Midway seems right at home in San Diego, long known as the ultimate Navy town. In 1923 the city became the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific fleet and two decades later became a focal point of the World War II effort. After the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, many San Diegans thought they would be next. Today the Navy maintains a major presence in San Diego, and you'll likely see an aircraft carrier and other battleship-gray ships across the harbor at Naval Air Station North Island.
The Midway serves as a perfect backdrop to the Greatest Generation Collection, a nostalgic assemblage of military art and monuments in adjacent Tuna Harbor Park. The most-photographed piece is "Unconditional Surrender," a massive color statue that brings to life a famous black-and-white image of an ecstatic sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square, New York City, on Aug. 14, 1945. It reflects the spontaneous eruption of euphoria that swept the nation when the end of World War II was announced.
On a circular plaza steps away, an ensemble of 16 bronze figures pays tribute to comedian Bob Hope, whose USO tours, traditionally at Christmastime, cheered troops deployed overseas. Clustered around old "Ski Nose" as he stands at a vintage mike are smiling men and women from all service branches, ethnic backgrounds and time periods, from World War II to the Persian Gulf War.
Other memorials in the park remember Pearl Harbor, the highly decorated battleship USS San Diego, and the tuna clippers that were converted to supply ships in World War II. The harbor still has some commercial fishing vessels, but the tuna industry folded long ago.
The city's rich seafaring lore, from whaling days to its prominence as a U.S. naval homeport, comes alive in exhibits at the 1898 steam ferry Berkeley, one in a collection of restored ships that comprise the floating Maritime Museum of San Diego. Moored on the North Embarcadero, a short stroll from the cruise terminal, the Berkeley operated in San Francisco Bay for 60 years and carried thousands of survivors to safety during the 1906 earthquake.
Next door are other lovingly preserved ships that invite guests to clamber about their weathered decks and poke about nooks and crannies below. The pride of the museum's fleet is the 1863 sailing ship Star of India, the world's oldest ship that still goes to sea. During her working career, she transported cargo from England to India, immigrants to New Zealand, and salmon fishermen and cannery workers between San Francisco and Alaska. Nearby are a 1970s-era Russian attack submarine and replica 18th century British navy frigate used in the Russell Crowe movie "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World."
One-hour sightseeing cruises on the North Bay glide by sea lions basking on buoys and bait barges; pelicans, sea gulls and double-crested cormorants; ships and aircraft at the naval air station; a Navy submarine base; and Point Loma Lighthouse, strategically located where the bay meets the wide-open Pacific. In the distance loom the mountains of Mexico, nine miles away.
Seaport Village is a shopper's haven just 10 minutes by foot from the cruise ship pier. The 75 charming specialty shops on cobblestone paths sell everything from kites and music boxes to resort wear, hot sauces, luxury soaps and good, old-fashioned souvenirs. Live music, street performers, and a restored 1890s carousel with exquisitely carved animals lend a festive touch.
The 16-block Gaslamp Quarter, hip and historic, abounds with more than 100 places to eat, many of them the best in their league. A neglected area until redevelopment started in the late 1970s, this enclave of gussied-up 19th century buildings is now an after-dark hotspot for locals, tourists, and conventioneers. Cafe and restaurant tables crowd brick sidewalks lit by old-time street lamps, loud music spills out of jam-packed pubs and clubs, and boutiques stay open late.
East Village, a former warehouse district, borders the Gaslamp and has seen rapid changes since the San Diego Padres opened state-of-the-art Petco Park in 2004. A fourth-floor skybridge links it to the Omni San Diego Hotel, the only hotel physically connected to a Major League Baseball stadium (without being in the park, as in Toronto). Memorabilia on display in the lobby and public rooms includes bats, balls and gear autographed by the likes of Mantle, Mays, Aaron and DiMaggio.
Beyond downtown, the prime tourist magnet is Balboa Park, a spacious oasis filled with lush gardens and 15 museums. The world-famous San Diego Zoo, best known for its giant pandas from China and koalas from Australia, heads the long list of attractions in the nation's largest urban cultural park. A herd of eight Asian elephants roams the zoo's brand new Elephant Odyssey.
Many Balboa Park museums occupy highly ornamented, Spanish Renaissance-style buildings constructed for the 1915-1916 Panama-California Exposition, which commemorated the opening of the Panama Canal. Other architectural landmarks date from the 1935-1936 California Pacific International Exposition. Sightseers can take a trip down memory lane at the San Diego Automotive Museum; revel in Padres and Chargers lore at the San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Museum; and view Egyptian, Mayan and Native American artifacts at the San Diego Museum of Man. An IMAX theater and planetarium highlight the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center. The prestigious San Diego Museum of Art is one of several art repositories in the park.
The Mission Bay area, a short drive north of downtown, is home to SeaWorld, the renowned marine life park that rivals the zoo as a favorite family attraction. Besides shows starring Shamu the killer whale, crowd-pleasers include dolphin and sea lion shows, up-close encounters with penguins and manatees, and water thrill rides.
History buffs make a beeline to Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, a collection of original and reconstructed adobe and wood buildings grouped around a grassy plaza where the West Coast's first permanent European settlement took root. On a nearby hillside in 1769, Father Junipero Serra built the first in a chain of 21 Spanish missions in California.
Visitors to this pocket of Hispanic heritage, easily reached from downtown on the hop-on, hop-off Old Town Trolley, soak in the past by watching demonstrations of pioneer skills, perusing period merchandise in vintage shops, and drifting into free museums that recall the 1821-1872 era.
The state park and environs offer lovely patio restaurants serving Mexican food, plus markets and vendor carts loaded with Mexican arts and crafts.
For more information, contact: Downtown San DieGo, www.sdGOdowntown.com.