Southern California – 2019 10 – Balboa Park San Diego

[Libby]

I’ve been an absolute failure with this trip report and nearly 2 years on I can’t find my trip notes. So … I’m going to continue with some photos and things I remember. Sorry the next entries will be very brief, but I hope you enjoy the photos.

Southern California – 2019 10 – Balboa Park San Diego
Friday August 16th 2019

Our last full day in San Diego.

We drove again to Balboa Park and Parked near to the Organ Pavillion.

It was still quite early and the organ stage was screened off.
There was an explorer pass that can be purchased to allow access to all the exhibits but we decided we wouldn’t get value from it. Instead we spent some time exploring the free to enter parts of the exposition site and then picked one museum to pay for entry. This worked well for us.

We enjoyed the architecture and the gardens. We had a good peep at the Japanese garden from the outside but were able to go inside the butterfly garden and walk around. This garden had been a nudist garden in the 1930s! Apparently it was vey popular and visitors could buy tickets to watch the nudists!

It was a scorching hot day and the cloisters and fountains gave much needed respite from the sun.

We also spent some time window shopping at the adjoining Spanish Village.

We visited what I thought was going to be a conservatory but was in fact just a cage open to the elements. In here were tropical plants and we were able to watch the humming birds sampling the flowers. (Sadly too quick for my camera.)

We bought lunch from a food cart and then decided we’d like to visit the natural history museum. This was informative but not overwhelming. The teaching assistant in me was impressed in the way the exhibits were labelled with information and questions to get their audience really thinking about what they were seeing.

On the way back to the car we spotted a couple having wedding photos taken outside the now open organ stage.

Then back to the hotel for a freshen up and rest before dinner (again, I can’t remember where we ate). We also did some packing as we were moving on the next day. We spent the evening watching the Navy boats manoeuvring in and out of Coronado Island and watching the sunset. A lovely, quiet evening.