Summer 2019: San Diego (downtown and waterfront)

(Click on each image to see the high-resolution version)

As we arrived in San Diego, we realized that the city was celebrating the 250th anniversary of its founding, they decorated the City Hall and Star of India, "the world’s oldest active sailing ship", to commemorating this event.

San Diego City Hall (San Diego City and County Administrative Building)

Star of India

We stayed at the Embassy Suite hotel near the waterfront, right in the thick of things. Our room was on the 10th floor, which gave us great (partial) views of the city and harbor.

Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel
(with the Coronado Bridge in the distance)

Harbor Drive
(with the Harbor Club condominium building in the center)

San Diego is a major navy base. One day I saw a warship coming into the harbor. Later, I found out that this was a ship that bears my name (just kidding!) - the USS Howard.

USS Howard

I took several strolls along the waterfront. The retired aircraft carrier USS Midway, now a museum, is a fixture in San Diego, as it the "Kissing Sailor" statue, which now earned renewed controversy in the #MeToo movement. The waterfront, facing southwest, offers good views of sunsets.

USS Midway

Kissing Sailor

Sunset

More pictures from my strolls along the waterfront. The Pacific Soul sculpture in particular caught my attention. I took a picture from the inside of it to get a different perspective.

Harbor Drive

Pacific Soul

Alphabet Soup

Embarcadero Marina Parks, adjacent to our hotel, are where we spent much time too.

Embarcadero Marina Park South

One day we took the ferry to Coronado Island for a day trip. We walked to the famous Hotel del Coronado, "the second largest wooden structure in the United States", and the beach in front of it.

Hotel del Coronado

Sand Castle

We saw a hummingbird, probably a Rufous Hummingbird, on the hotel ground; in fact, in the busy corridor outside the hotel lobby. It seemed quite at home here.

Rufous Hummingbird

We walked through the neighborhoods on Coronado, some of the houses are very nice.

A cute house on Coronado Island

From the ferry we got another look on the USS Midway from a different perspective.

another view of USS Midway from the ferry

Another place that I walked to on one of those days was the Santa Fe Depot railway station, quite a nice sample of San Diego architecture, I think.

Santa Fe Depot

We also took a short trip to Balboa Park. The park was under renovation and it was rather messy. But I took some pictures of Casa del Prado whose intricate exterior decorations always impressed me.

Casa del Prado

Also part of Balboa is the Desert Garden, where we enjoyed the native Southern California plants.

Desert Garden

Also in the Desert Garden were some native birds, which we enjoyed watching as well.

Black Phoebe

Anna's Hummingbird

Rufous Hummingbird

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