Fiesta de Reyes in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park appears to be ready for Christmas!
The Mexican restaurant and its colorful shops have been decorated with bright wreaths, poinsettias, Christmas trees, a Nativity scene, and a larger-than-life display up on one stage depicting the three wise men.
As you can see from my photographs taken this morning, many of the holiday decorations have a festive Mexican flavor!
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With less than a week to go until Thanksgiving, signs of the Holiday Season have begun to appear around downtown San Diego!
Several hotels and destinations have already put up Christmas trees. Banners and other fun, festive decorations are springing up on street lamps and inside windows. I took these photographs this morning during a long meandering walk through the city.
I was told by downtown workers that the decorating should begin in earnest on Monday. I have no doubt I’ll be seeing many more Christmas trees, Santas, reindeer and winter wonderlands in the next few days!
Season’s Greetings on B Street.The Westgate Hotel has a Christmas tree in their elegant lobby. Giant nutcrackers and more should be going up early this week.The Westin San Diego Bayview has a couple of beautiful Christmas trees up, including this one.Poinsettias have been planted in front of The Guild Hotel on Broadway.You can watch the annual Parade of Lights on San Diego Bay on both December 8th and 15th. Why not do it from the Maritime Museum of San Diego?Seaport Village is ready for the holidays!Frosty the Snowman on a window of the Seaport Village Carousel.Surfin’ Santa will visit Seaport Village next Saturday!Seaport Village boasts the biggest Christmas tree ornaments I’ve ever seen!A very large Christmas tree in the courtyard at The Headquarters!Twenty tons of snow will be arriving at The Headquarters on Saturday, December 14th. Santa will be available, too!Kansas City Barbeque (of Top Gun movie fame) is once again providing a free Thanksgiving dinner to Active Duty Military! They’ve been doing it for over 40 years!The Grinch welcomes customers to Cali Cream Homemade Ice Cream in the Gaslamp Quarter! (I see Santa, too!)
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
The Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter has an awesome Halloween display inside their lobby!
The hotel’s different departments have each “carved” a pumpkin. Their creative efforts fill a large table, and guests are invited to vote for their favorite. The winning department receives a trophy!
I checked out all the great pumpkins this morning. Some are really scary. Some are pure fun. (I like the pumpkin with a spa facial.)
Here come the photos…
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Irving Gill was an American architect who did most of his work in Southern California, especially in San Diego and Los Angeles. He is considered a pioneer of the modern movement in architecture.
When I visited Oceanside a little over a month ago, I photographed Irving Gill’s final project: the 1936 Blade Tribune building. Let me share those photos now!
If you’d like to read a great article concerning the history of the now defunct Oceanside Blade-Tribune newspaper, click here.
The 1936 Irving Gill building you see in these photos, at 401 Seagaze Drive, was built to accommodate a newly created Oceanside Daily Blade Tribune and News. The unique building with an Art Deco façade was restored in 2019 and today is home to the Blade 1936 Italian restaurant!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Día de Los Muertos is about a month away, but Old Town San Diego is already preparing for the big event!
For 2024, Día de Los Muertos will be as big as ever, spilling from Old Town San Diego State Historic Park down San Diego Avenue. For three days the public is invited to the free celebration!
On Friday, November 1, there will be a fun family screening of The Book of Life. The movie will be shown in the grassy plaza at the center of Old Town State Park.
That Saturday and Sunday, the Día de Los Muertos Festival will take over Old Town. In addition to entertainment, there will be tours of more than 40 unique Day of the Dead altars, and anyone can join the annual candlelit procession from Immaculate Conception Church down San Diego Avenue to El Campo Santo Cemetery.
During a morning walk today, I saw a beautiful altar set up already at Casa de Freds restaurant, and one being prepared in the park next to the Whaley House Museum. Many fancy Catrinas are already set up at Fiesta de Reyes. Calaveras, marigolds and sugar skulls are appearing all over!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
A library card is more valuable than you might realize! You can use your San Diego Public Library card to check out a free vehicle day-use pass for over 200 California State Parks!
I noticed this valuable information last weekend during my visit to the Rancho Bernardo Library. To receive a free pass, head over to your nearest San Diego Public Library branch and speak to the library staff.
The free pass will admit you into so many amazing State Parks, including beautiful Torrey Pines State Nature Preserve, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, Silver Strand State Beach…
You don’t have a library card? Get one at your local library! Then grab a free State Parks pass!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Are you old enough to remember the golden age of surf culture? You know–those years when the radio was filled with pop music by The Ventures, Jan and Dean, and The Beach Boys. Back when surfing movies were on the marquee of your local theater, and Gidget was a popular show on television.
If you love nostalgia, the California Surf Museum has a really great exhibit that might tickle your fancy. It might also bring back memories. Star, Cars and Guitars – The Birth of the Modern Surf Era: 1958 to 1965 features photographs, posters, rare artifacts and memorabilia from those days when the surfing subculture sprang forth and quickly took center stage in the popular culture.
I visited the California Surf Museum last Saturday and enjoyed looking at the extensive display.
This era came right before I was born, but in my youth echoes of it still lingered on the radio and on television. I remember I had the incredible Endless Summer album by The Beach Boys which I loved to hear on my scratchy record player. Yes, that was a long time ago!
(How many San Diego area locations are mentioned in The Beach Boys hit song Surfin’ U.S.A.? Well, let’s see: Del Mar, Trestles, Swami’s, San Onofre, and La Jolla!)
The museum exhibit covers those golden days when surfing’s popularity exploded across California, the U.S.A. and the world, including the era’s trailblazers and athletes, surfboards, fashion, cars, popular surf spots and early surfing competitions.
Honestly, all of the exhibits in this one-of-a-kind museum are cool. If you live in Southern California and you’re at all into surfing or the lifestyle, and you haven’t visited the California Surf Museum, you’re really missing out!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Californian, official tall ship of the State of California, set out today from the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Passengers aboard the schooner, a replica of a Gold Rush era revenue cutter, began another four hour Sunday sailing adventure!
I stood on the museum’s barge out on San Diego Bay as Californian’s volunteer crew prepared the tall ship to get underway. Once well out on the water, the sails would be employed, so necessary actions were performed beforehand.
At noon, when all was ready, lines were cast off and the ship moved away from the dock by using its motor.
I don’t pretend to understand the details of sailing a traditionally rigged tall ship, but I do enjoy watching the action!
If you’d like to go on one of these Tall Ship Adventures, visit the Maritime Museum of San Diego’s website here!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
The fantastic Exchange Pavilion has been completed in Balboa Park, and it is fulfilling its purpose: bringing people (and hopefully their ideas) together!
This open, geometric structure was erected in the Plaza de Panama because San Diego/Tijuana has been designated World Design Capital 2024. Various activations have taken form in San Diego during the yearlong international event, including the Bay to Park Paseo, but the landmark Exchange Pavilion appears to be at center stage!
Sunlight makes its curving, translucent orange skin glow, and colorful seats (that remind me of building blocks) entice Balboa Park visitors to relax in the shade. Electronic messages in English and Spanish scroll along the edges of the structure, but the people I saw seemed more interested in talking to one another or peering at their phones.
The Exchange Pavilion, as I understand it, officially opens tomorrow, so perhaps there will be more signage or elements added to inform the curious public. I’ve read that the pavilion will remain in San Diego until this fall, when it will be moved to neighboring Tijuana, Mexico.
UPDATE!
A few days later, I noticed this…
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Look at these photographs that were taken last week!
I was heading through Balboa Park to the Comic-Con Museum (for my Comic-Con coverage) when I noticed that the restoration of the Botanical Building appears to be near completion. Look how amazingly beautiful it’s going to be!
Workers were busy painting the non-lath lower part of the immense structure. The area in front of the Botanical Building behind the construction fence, where grassy lawns and a small section of the lily pond have existed, was still mostly bare dirt.
If you’d like to see photos showing different stages of the Botanical Building’s deconstruction and restoration, and read more info concerning it (going back over two years), you can click here and here and here and here and here!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Cool San Diego Sights! 