Its love relationship with nature, its worship of the sun and its benevolent climate give it a free and carefree rhythm of life, a feeling of perpetual vacation. San Diego is what you’d expect from California: surfboards riding the waves, statuesque tanned bodies, and blaring convertibles burning the asphalt between the palm trees.
But this city facing the Pacific also boasts a pulsating downtown in which to indulge in art and culture, also recognized for an excellent culinary scene and seasoned with the cheerful Mexican influence that seeps from its proximity to the border. From this perfect symbiosis a hedonistic city like no other is born. Probably the best place to live in the entire state.
San Diego begins to feel the pulse in the historic Gaslamp Quarter, a modern and cosmopolitan framework that displays its leisure offer at the foot of the skyscrapers: restaurants, bars, clubs, shops and art galleries are concentrated in what It was once a popular area for brothels and gambling halls.
Nothing to do with what he exhibits today. An impeccable grid of steel, glass and concrete, whose streets lead to the port area known as the Embarcadero. It is here that you can take a cruise across the bay from one of the boats on the dock or simply sit in one of the restaurants on the sea to binge on oysters and lobsters. One of them, Bergantin Restaurant, takes the form of a schooner moored on the shore.
Another option, in this part of the city, is to visit the USS Midway Museum to discover the largest aircraft carrier in the world, the same one that served the United States in five wars and that today offers an interesting journey through the universe of aviation. And for that matter, go to the Top Gun bar, the movie that catapulted Tom Cruise to the Olympus of fame. Most of his scenes were shot in San Diego.
But if there is one place that the locals go to when they are not going to the beach, this is Balboa Park, the largest and oldest urban park in the country. An oasis of vegetation in which prestigious museums, pavilions with Spanish reminiscences, theaters such as the Old Globe (faithful reconstruction of Shakespeare’s), and the world-famous zoo with almost a thousand animal species, some in serious danger of extinction such as the giant panda or the Sumatran tiger.
To the north of the park, a bustle of bars, cafes, and bookstores heralds the arrival at the core of the gay community. They call it, precisely, North Park and it is an emerging neighborhood with a jovial atmosphere and an incombustible night scene. They say that one of its streets, 30th Street, is the mecca for craft beer. Not surprisingly, they serve it in more than a dozen places: Mike Hess Brewing, Modern Times Beer, Thorn Street Brewery…
Bold and extravagant is also Logan, the epicenter of Mexican culture. A degraded neighborhood until the sixties, when it was revitalized by young artists. Their first action was to decorate the lower part of the Coronado Bridge with what they call Chicano Park: murals that allude to the revolution and the fight for freedom, to Zapata and the Aztec pyramids, to the Virgin of Guadalupe and Frida Kahlo.
Logan is the alternative neighborhood par excellence, with a kind of Fifth Avenue in a bohemian version where live music, exhibitions, and events by artists from the neighborhood take place at Comic-Con San Diego, which is the largest fair planet comic book And where colorful locals offer original bites ranging from Doggos Gus bacon-rolled hot dogs to Lumpia’s Filipino delicacies to Border X Brewing’s tacos with their repertoire of beers.
In the antipodes of this style is the atmosphere of La Jolla, an elegant urbanization with crystalline beaches that serve as a frame for prohibitive boutiques and refined restaurants. All this presided over by the Hotel La Valencia, which is known as the Pink Lady for its salmon-colored façade. Its bar, The Whaling, has attracted celebrities since time immemorial.
But all that glitters is not glamor: in La Jolla there are numerous options with which to soak up nature. Take the Coast Walk Trail to walk on the cliffs and see cormorants, pelicans and sea lions. Or take a kayak trip to explore the seven caves and snorkel in a transparent sea. Or venture to explore the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve, which is home to the most exotic pine trees in the United States.
And so all that remains is to finish on the beaches of Mission Bay to return to the archetypal image of SoCal (this is what they call southern California): Ocean Beach, Mission Beach, Pacific Beach… all of them crowded with young people scorching on their sands. Towards the sea, the view is lost between waves and surfers, while inland the atmosphere is concentrated in a picturesque promenade with skaters, sportswear shops, bars with organic drinks and outlandish people like no other. An air of freedom in a city that has remained part of the American dream since the riotous days of the gold rush.
