After the quite gross bus dropped us off around noon in the middle of San Diego, we started to get an overview about the city. That’s why we wanted to store our big backpacks somewhere and for all the travellers of you, we’re telling you now the ultimate tip: we just went to one of the bigger and more luxurious Marriott hotels and there you are, storing luggage for free (nobody asks for a hotel reservation or similar). At the Greyhound station they asked for $4 per backpack per hour, but not with us 😉 Having solved this problem, we wandered along the waterfront of San Diego and tried to figure out our plans for the next days. The waterfront not only offers the harbor including all Navy Ships of the States (San Diego is one of the main Navy harbors of the States), but also a museum on one of the ships (USS Midway) and a Marine Museum. Unfortunately quite expensive and as we heard not more impressive than another museum with ships….
In the late afternoon, we made our way to our host for the next days. You might remember Steven, our hiking acquaintance from Grand Canyon. Indeed we were able to stay with him for our time in San Diego, but unfortunately Steven was for the weekend in L.A. and we only saw him Monday evening. But we cannot complain having a house on our own, it wasn’t that bad 😉 And it is even getting better, Steven has a 3-year old white dog (the breed is not too clear, a husky might have played a role) Max and we should take care of him. A cute dog full of energy! When we arrived, he jumped in a circle around us for 5min like a bouncing ball. Also later on, he didn’t show any shyness and so we had a lot of fun the next days.
Our program for San Diego was really quickly set (there is not tooooo much to see). We spent the first day in the Balboa park in the middle of the city, which is home to the world famous San Diego zoo (also here with $40 entry fees not really affordable). Additionally, there are museums, an artist village, a lot of green and numerous beautiful buildings built in a Spanish-Mexican way. Afterwards we went again to the Waterfront and Little Italy (indeed it is Little).
The next day, it was beach time, because San Diego is famous for being a holiday paradise. We took the bus to the half island Coronado and had a look in the park and in a small touristy beach road, before we went on to Coronado beach and the hotel with the same name. The hotel is known for its special architecture and mainly for the unusual roof shape. We took the bus another time to the next beach (Imperial Beach), where we spent a relaxed afternoon with swimming and a nap on the beach.
And then, our next personal highlight of San Diego was on the schedule (and one of the main reasons why we went to San Diego): Tijuana, Mexico! But due to reasons of a nicer blog shape, we made a separate blog entry for Mexico (see here).
That was our last day in San Diego, because after having dinner and a good chat with Steven, who came back home on Monday evening, we made our way to the airport the next day in order to leave in the evening to the West Coast and fly to Washington D.C. We spent the day in Old Town (the first settling of the Spanish) and Mission Bay and then, the 11-hour flight started, but this is another story!