Onwards and southwards

Day Twelve: San Francisco to Cambria

And so the last part of the loop back to LA began as we left San Francisco and motored south to Monterey for a short walk along Cannery Row.  Lots of Steinbeck associations here, although as he is not an author I have read anything by these were largely lost on me!  The old factories that remain have of course been converted into shops, hotels and the like, but reasonably well done and I would have gladly spent a bit longer there.  If nothing else it would have been nice to visit the aquarium as I have heard good things about that.  Still we did catch a glimpse of a sea otter floating out in the bay, which was cute.

From there we headed south along the "seventeen mile drive" through Pacific Grove past some wonderful houses, stunning sea views (with a couple of photo stops) and several golf courses (well, you can't have everything.  I never did understand the point of golf). Lots of birds and a few deer were spotted, along with the inevitable squirrels - although seeing them on the beaches was a first.  That took us into Carmel, about which I knew nothing other that Clint Eastwood had been mayor for a while.  Another nice town - it reminded me a lot of Niagara-on-the-lake, which we have been to on every visit to Canada.

Heading South along Pacific Coast Highway 1 was the rest of the day in a nutshell.  There are restrictions on vehicle size down there, so we swapped over to a slightly smaller coach for the afternoon.  This was delivered to us in Carmel by a chap named Wolfgang, and he took our bus by other routes down to the hotel at Cambria.  The views were indeed fantastic all down the coast - and we even had an enforced swap around of seating on the bus half way so that those who had been inland got the sea views for part two.  The changeover was accomplished at Big Sur, where we had a brief break from cliffs, beaches and crashing waves in a grove of redwoods and other huge trees.  Not as dramatic as Yosemite, and we weren't there long enough to do more than wander from car park to lodge and back, emptied of bladder but filling up on ice creams instead.

The Pacific Coast Highway - looks much better than I can describe it!

It is at this point that I realise what an atrocious travel writer I am as I really can't describe the pacifc coast with any of the sense of drama we actually experienced.  I really wanted this blog to be more than a simple list of places we had been , but I guess I need to hone my craft a bit more.  So we will continue in this vein for the rest of the holiday and I shall try to improve my style before our next adventures...

The Cambria Pine Lodge was our stop that night.  When we were looking at the hotels before we left this one seemed to have the potential to be the best of the bunch. Located on the edge of town, in the woods, there was no easy walk to the town centre so we were basically a captive market for the night.  We didn't really mind this, and had planned to have dinner there anyway to celebrate the birthday of one of our group, but the food was a little disappointing. Rubbery scallops that close to the sea could have been so much better.  It was slightly made up for by there being music in the bar afterwards.  Also, the room was nothing special and the whole place was in need of a little sprucing up.

Day Thirteen: Cambria to Los Angeles

The pervading sense of disappointment hanging over us from the night before was not dispelled by a hearty breakfast.  Mainly because we didn't have one!  Just a slice of toast as neither of us felt like eating, and certainly not at the buffet prices they were charging.  That really was a case of captive market syndrome.  Still, we were both immensely cheered up by the morning stop at Solvang.

This was somewhere that had not been mentioned in the brochure or itintery and was an excellent surprise.  Originally founded by Danish immigrants it is a beautiful little town that quite took me back to my childhood holidays in Denmark and left a big grin on my face.  OK, so you have to factor in wider roads and larger buildings (and the odd palm tree) but the general architectural style of most of the town centre draws on Danish cottages or public buildings.  There are a couple of mock windmills, a littler than real mermaid and also a replica of the round tower in Copenhagen.  I really could have stayed there all day - or even longer.  As it was we had time to look around and also try some apple dumplings, which I don't think I ever managed in the real place.

Lunch and the early afternoon as at Santa Barbara where we got a group photo at the old Mission and enjoyed Clam Chowder which more than made up for the scallops of the previous night.  I was a liitle disturbed by the Tsunami Zone street signs but it was a nice place to kill a few hours.  And then we had the long drive into and through LA to reach our hotel at Anaheim.  That was the Sheraton, which overlooks Disneyland and was to be our final resting place for three nights before we headed home.  So that can wait for what will hopefully be the last of these entries (and I might then write about something else!).

Holiday 2014 part one

Ah, I seem not to have posted since February.  Time to make up for that...

Where does the time go?  It is now over a month since we started our holiday and I really want to write it up while things are still fairly fresh in the memory, but already feel that the details are slipping away.

As followers on flickr, twitter or instagram should have been able to work out, we took another trip to the USA this year.  Like the 2006 excursion (was it really that long ago?!) we travelled with Titan, doing their "California and  the Golden West" tour, the details of which we will get to below.  We did look around at other tour operators doing similar routes, as Titan are expensive, but when you add in the door-to door travel, hotel porterage, numbers of included versus optional excursions etc plus the level of quality and enjoyment we had last time it just made perfect sense to go with them again.

So, travel we did - 2700+ miles in a big loop.  Starting and ending at Los Angeles international we took in San Diego, Palm Springs, Scottsdale, Sedona, The Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, Williams, Las Vegas, Visalia, Yosemite, Modesto, San Francisco, Monterrey, Carmel, Cambria, Solvang and Santa Barbara before returning to LA to see Anaheim and Hollywood among others.  Some real beauty in there - particularly the Grand Canyon and amongst the redwoods in Yosemite and Big Sur - but also bits of San Francisco are a pure joy and the Pacific Coast Highway was delightful.

I did think about just bunging up a list of good and bad but want to try to write a bit more of a proper travelogue, so here we go.

Day one - Home to Heathrow.
Rather than getting up at Stupid O'clock we decided to go down to Heathrow the night before and Titan offered a deal at the Park Inn which seemed OK, and so it was.  That meant we got a leisurly morning to finish off packing (I never did understand people who pack their cases weeks before going away - surely that just generates creases in the clothes) and a drive down off-peak which I must confess I slept through most of.  Nobody extra to collect on the way either, which was nice.  I can't say the hotel was anything spectacular but it did the job.  We also discovered we had forgotten to pack toothpaste, but that was the only omission from the luggage and easily rectified.  Nice pizza from a place over the road and a good sleep.

Day two - Heathrow to San Diego
While we were having dinner the night before, the hotel filled up with Chinese school kids.  At least six-coaches worth.  That made breakfast an interestingly multi-cultural experience but by 8 we were in a small minibus with the others from our trip who had also elected to stop over, shuttling across the road to Terminal 3.

At this point we got a pleasant surprise.  Unfortunately not a flight upgrade, but the Tour Manager.  Alex Cussins was the guy who had guided us around Texas eight years ago, and here he was again to mange this journey.  Obviously we recognised him, but more surprisingly he remembered us too.  Now he does at least one tour a month and they run between 30 and 40 people on average so he has seen at least 3,800 folks since last time.  Maybe we made more of an impression than we thought, but either way that's good people skills.  This time the group was 37 people - mostly couples but one or two groups of friends, one each of mother/son and mother/daughter combos and a few singletons. All seemed friendly enough on first encounter and I think it is fair to say we got on great throughout the following travels.

Not having flown Virgin before, we were a bit disappointed by the on-board service.  OK, so we had chosen a two-seat at the back so as to get a window (and no stranger) but it really did feel like we were the last in line.  Oddly when we went BA to Toronto last year in roughly the same seats we got served first - funny how the same thing can be different, if you catch my drift.  So they'd run out of the meals we wanted by the time they got to us, and generally the crew seemed a bit bored by the time they reached us on each visit.  And yes, I slept through a good chunk of the flight (there's a theme developing here).

10½ hours later we were queueing to be let in to the USA.  It seemed to take forever for the immigration lines to wiggle their way to the desks, and while we were waiting spotted Verne (mini-me) Troyer who had obviously been up the front of our plane (or even upstairs).  Surrounded by hangers-on who looked like they would happily do a but of body-guarding should the need arise.  He'd not been in London for long as he was posting pics of being searched on the way out of LA only 3 days before...  Anyway, the paperwork was all in order so they let us in and the holiday proper could begin.

With a 3½ hour coach trip.  To be fair that was an hour or more longer than expected due to hideous traffic but still not the best way to first experience California.  Of course the whole holiday was one big coach trip so an extra hour didn't really make much difference in the long term - especially as it was a comfortable coach and Art an excellent driver who would prove a fount of knowledge and good humour throughout the rest of the trip.  A few interesting sights on the drive down to San Diego - Military training grounds, a Nuclear power station with suggestively shaped domes, our first look at the Pacific but the end result was well worth it.

Our base for the first two nights was the Sheraton Hotel and Marina, and it was really rather good.  Lovely room, fab views over said marina, nice food and free wi-fi in the lobby if not the rooms.  But the real appreciation of that was for later after we had a bite to eat and much needed sleep...

Oh, it seems Flickr doesn't want to link to Blogger any more, so click the link above to see the photos!

To be continued.