Lido Isle in Newport Beach

3 March 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

© D Ramey Logan/cc-by-sa-4.0

© D Ramey Logan/cc-by-sa-4.0

Lido Isle is a man-made island located in the harbor of Newport Beach, California. Surrounded by the city, Lido Isle was incorporated as part of Newport Beach in 1906. At that time it was part sandbar and part mudflat. There are no commercial facilities on the island other than a small snack bar open in the summer, and its only link to the city is a small bridge. The man-made island is solely residential with approximately 1,800 people living on the island.   read more…

Gilroy, the Garlic Capital of the World

27 February 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  8 minutes

Old City Hall © Sanfranman59/cc-by-sa-3.0

Old City Hall © Sanfranman59/cc-by-sa-3.0

Gilroy is a city in Northern California’s Santa Clara County, south of Morgan Hill and north of San Benito County. Gilroy’s origins lie in the village of San Ysidro that grew in the early 19th century out of Rancho San Ysidro, granted to Californio ranchero Ygnacio Ortega in 1809. Following Ygnacio’s death in 1833, his daughter Clara Ortega de Gilroy and son-in-law John Gilroy inherited the largest portion of the rancho and began developing the settlement. When the town was incorporated in 1868, it was renamed in honor of John Gilroy, a Scotsman who had emigrated to California in 1819, naturalized as a Mexican citizen, adopted the Spanish language, and converted to Catholicism, taking the name of Juan Bautista Gilroy.   read more…

Joshua Tree National Park in California

15 February 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  8 minutes

Cyclops and Pee Wee Formations © Jarek Tuszyński/cc-by-sa-3.0

Cyclops and Pee Wee Formations © Jarek Tuszyński/cc-by-sa-3.0

Joshua Tree National Park is an American national park in southeastern California, east of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, near Palm Springs. It is named for the Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) native to the Mojave Desert. Originally declared a national monument in 1936, Joshua Tree was redesignated as a national park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act. Encompassing a total of 790,636 acres (1,235.4 sq mi; 3,199.6 km²) – slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island – the park includes 429,690 acres (671.4 sq mi; 1,738.9 km²) of designated wilderness. Straddling San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, the park includes parts of two deserts, each an ecosystem whose characteristics are determined primarily by elevation: the higher Mojave Desert and the lower Colorado Desert (including the Coachella Valley). The Little San Bernardino Mountains traverse the southwest edge of the park.   read more…

Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood

30 January 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Greater Los Angeles Area, Hotels Reading Time:  9 minutes

© flickr.com - Tony Hisgett/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Tony Hisgett/cc-by-2.0

The Chateau Marmont is a hotel located at 8221 Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The hotel was designed by architects Arnold A. Weitzman and William Douglas Lee and completed in 1929. It was modeled loosely after the Château d’Amboise, a royal retreat in France’s Loire Valley. The hotel is known as both a long- and short-term residence for celebrities – historically “populated by people either on their way up or on their way down” – as well as a home for New Yorkers in Hollywood. The hotel has 63 rooms, suites, cottages, and bungalows. In 2020, the Chateau Marmont converted to a private members-only hotel.   read more…

San Diego in California

29 January 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

© ChetChang/cc-by-sa-4.0

© ChetChang/cc-by-sa-4.0

San Diego (Spanish for ‘Saint Didacus‘) is a city in the U.S. state of California on the coast of the Pacific Ocean and immediately adjacent to the United States–Mexico border. With an estimated population of 1.4 million as of July 1, 2019, San Diego is the eighth most populous city in the United States and second most populous in California (after Los Angeles). The city is the county seat of San Diego County, the fifth most populous county in the United States, with 3,338,330 estimated residents as of 2019. The city is known for its mild year-round climate, natural deep-water harbor, extensive beaches and parks, long association with the United States Navy and Marine Corps, and recent emergence as a healthcare and biotechnology development center.   read more…

Thomas Mann House in Pacific Palisades

7 October 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Greater Los Angeles Area Reading Time:  15 minutes

© Mirkomlux/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Mirkomlux/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Thomas Mann House (German: Thomas-Mann-Haus) in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, in the U.S. state of California is the former residence of Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Mann, who lived there with his family during his exile from 1942 until 1952. Designed by the architect Julius Ralph Davidson, the house at 1550 San Remo Drive was built in 1941/42. In 2016, it was acquired by the German federal government, and opened on June 18, 2018 as a place for transatlantic dialogue and debate.   read more…

Garden Grove in California

26 June 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Greater Los Angeles Area Reading Time:  7 minutes

Crystal Cathedral © Ischa1

Crystal Cathedral © Ischa1

Garden Grove< is a city in northern Orange County, California, United States, located 34 miles (55 km) southeast of the city of Los Angeles in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The population is at about 176,000. State Route 22, also known as the Garden Grove Freeway, passes through the city in an east-west direction. The western portion of the city is known as West Garden Grove. Garden Grove was founded by Alonzo Cook in 1874. A school district and Methodist church were organized that year. It remained a small rural crossroads until the arrival of the railroad in 1905. The rail connection helped the town prosper with crops of orange, walnuts, chili peppers and later strawberries. In 1933, much of the town’s central business district was destroyed by the Long Beach earthquake, and one person was killed at the high school. The post-World War II boom led to rapid development, and Garden Grove was incorporated as a city in 1956 with about 44,000 residents.   read more…

Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades

1 March 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Greater Los Angeles Area, House of the Month, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  13 minutes

© Bobak Ha'Eri/cc-by-3.0

© Bobak Ha’Eri/cc-by-3.0

The Getty Villa is at the easterly end of the Malibu coast in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. One of two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Villa is an educational center and museum dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria. The collection has 44,000 Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities dating from 6,500 BC to 400 AD, including the Lansdowne Heracles and the Victorious Youth. The UCLA/Getty Master’s Program in Archaeological and Ethnographic Conservation is housed on this campus.   read more…

Half Moon Bay in California

1 January 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  8 minutes

Ritz-Carlton Hotel © Elisa.rolle/cc-by-sa-4.0

Ritz-Carlton Hotel © Elisa.rolle/cc-by-sa-4.0

Half Moon Bay is a coastal city in San Mateo County, California, United States. Its population is at 11,000. Immediately at the north of Half Moon Bay is the Pillar Point Harbor and the unincorporated community of Princeton-by-the-Sea. The urban area has a population of 21,000. Half Moon Bay is located approximately 25 miles (40 km) south of San Francisco, 10 miles (16 km) west of San Mateo, and 45 miles (72 km) north of Santa Cruz. Neighboring towns include El Granada, Princeton-by-the-Sea, Moss Beach, and Montara to the north and Purissima, San Gregorio, and Pescadero to the south.   read more…

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