California Gold: A Walk to Old Town San Diego

Vivi, myself, and Confucius at the
SDCHM

The Journey Begins: The Chinese Historical Museum

It looked small on the outside. An old brick building in a very non-descript part of town near the Convention Center, but I knew it would be informative and filled with great exhibits on the inside. The San Diego Chinese Historical Museum was established in 1996, and is one of America’s leading institutions dedicated to sharing the Chinese American experience. That has to be worth something. Since its founding, SDCHM has transformed a crumbling, abandoned building in what was once San Diego’s Chinatown into a state-of-the-art multi-site museum that adds its vibrant color to the already bursting cultural life of the San Diego experience.

Displays include home furnishings brought from China that are centuries old, used by Asian-Americans, passed down through the generations. An entire bedroom has been reconstructed as it would have looked in the early 1800s. Beautiful silk tapestries hang from the walls. Elegant paintings fill each room with both life and luxury. The building is a humble one, but the curator has maximized the space given with the artifacts they have attained.

Bedroom exhibit inside
the museum.

There is a courtyard in the back with tinkling water fountains and a large statue of Confucius. My wife and I took a photo with the ancient philosopher before discussing where to go next.

"Let's go to Old Town," I say.

"How far is that?"

"Let me check...four miles."

"Why don't we just walk it," my wife states more than asks.

"Four miles?"

"We've done it before."

Hanging around Chinatown.

She was right. We had walked the seven mile round trip along the shoreline from Redondo to Manhattan Beach a couple of times. We had also made some extended hikes through the hills of both Palos Verdes and Marin County. We could make this hike to Old Town and back. It would be about 8 miles for the trip on top of the walking we had already done that morning plus the walking done at Old Town to actually see the sites there. It would be a fun challenge. It was a hot day in San Diego, but not oppressive. A little water. We could do this. Confucius agreed.

The Chinese Historical Museum sat just southwest of the Gaslamp Quarter where our hotel was located. Using our phones as guides we moved west through the Children's Park, continued a short jaunt near Harbor Drive until we reached Kettner Blvd.

"This should take us all the way there," I said as we began to walk north. "Almost. Just a couple of turns and we're there."


Stopping for Lunch in Little Italy

Image from San Diego Tribune

We crossed a few intersections, inhaled the sweet ocean breeze, and chatted about how nice people were in San Diego. The service personnel at the restaurants and bars around the Gaslamp Quarter is impressive. Hostesses and waiters are mostly college kids. They may not always get your order right the first time, but they'll be damn sure to make it right with a smile on their second attempt.

It was just past 11AM so we decided to go ahead and stop for lunch. Little Italy was close by. We made a small digression on our journey moving east to India Street. Little Italy is lined with sidewalk cafes and coffee shops that run from morning until after dark and are always buzzing with energy. We chose Davanti Enoteca, a place known mostly for their pizza and pastas. I had rigatoni and seafood while Vivi had a salad. Drinking wine may not seem like the best choice for a long walk, but I figured if the Ancient Romans could do it, so could I. I guessed they drank wine and made long walks back in the day. It felt like a reasonable assumption at the time.

I have always been jealous of that fact that San Diego has a lovely Little Italy community and Los Angeles does not. From many of the sidewalk cafes in Little Italy, one can see the sailboats drifting in the blue harbor just a few blocks away. One can enjoy amazing coffee, spaghetti, gelato, or seafood while taking in a Mediterranean-esque view.

After lunch we moved back to Kettner Blvd and continued, like soldiers, our slow march north, hoping to take Old Town by surprise before sunset.


The Journey North

Image from Crack Shack Instagram

We passed airport parking structures, the Crack Shack chicken restaurant, the 98 Bottles Bar, numerous tattoo parlors, and small business districts that were seemingly void of people. We were now walking through a part of San Diego that was a little further away from the hum and buzz of the USS Midway and the Gaslamp Quarter. We walked along Kettner Blvd parallel to Pacific Coast Highway. There was no shortage of vehicle traffic on PCH but the sidewalks were quiet and provided little shade from the midday sun.

Reaching Sassafras Street, we moved east and crossed over the 5 Freeway via a bridge over to India Street. I paused on the bridge and looked at the flowing traffic stretched out below. One side of the freeway was moving south towards Chula Vista and Tijuana, Mexico. The other side was moving north to La Jolla and I imagined all that way back up to LA.

Image from Cooking With Melody

We reached India St and proceeded through a service industry area filled with restaurants and shops. We passed the Regal Beagle and I paused to look for Mr. Roper. We stopped for ice cream at Gelato Vero Cafe and a much needed rest. The air conditioning of the small gelateria and the sweet pralines and cream were invigorating. It was also good to be back around other people. We had been walking
for an hour at this point and had experienced very little pedestrian traffic before reaching this tasty pit stop.


Arrival

We cut back west to San Diego Ave and more signs of life began to pop up. Signs with directions to Old Town, manicured garden displays, and the chipper chatter of nearby children let us know we were close to our final destination.

Inside the La Casa de Estudillo.
Image from Wikipedia.

According to its website, Old Town San Diego is now considered the “birthplace” of California. San Diego is also the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement in California where venerable Father Junipero Serra established the first of 21 missions that were to be the cornerstone of California’s colonization. That was in 1769. A world away from what was happening on the other side of the continent as British control was finally coming to a boiling point in their Atlantic colonies. Who could have imagined then that both coasts, English and Spanish, would one day make the cultural epicenters of one powerful nation. Immigration can do crazy-beautiful things to a place.

Father Serra’s mission and Presidio were built on a hillside overlooking what is currently known as Old Town San Diego. At the base of the hill in the 1820s, a small Mexican community of adobe buildings was formed and soon attained the status of El Pueblo de San Diego. In 1968, the State of California Department of Parks and Recreation established Old Town State Historic Park to preserve the wonderful heritage that characterized San Diego during the 1821 to 1872 period. The park includes a main plaza, several exhibits, museums and living history demonstrations such as reenactments, live music, and performance art.

Promotional still from Old Town SD.

The Cosmopolitan Hotel is a lavish historical throwback to a much more romantic and simpler time. La Casa de Estudillo is a gorgeous ranch house with a garden, courtyards, and indoor exhibits providing insights into the everyday life of Californios in the 18th century (it also allegedly quite haunted).   El Patio de Old Town provides a great ambiance of live Mariachi music, street vendors, delicious Mexican food (authentic or otherwise), and cold Margaritas.

Most "Old Town" sections of modern cities are simply the older parts of town that have grown outdated and are maybe slowly becoming gentrified or upgraded. Old Town San Diego is nothing of the kind. It has been preserved as best as possible to look and feel the same as it did 200 years ago. We walked slowly through the small town feeling completely removed from the likes of the Gaslamp Quarter, Little Italy, and the San Diego Zoo. Those places haven't been created yet. We're living in the 1820s now. These are dusty roads beaten by horses and rough hombres, colored with ancient Mexican festivals reinvented in Roman Catholic clothes. It's a beautiful place to visit tucked nicely inside another beautiful place to visit.

General tourist nonsense.

The day was now long in the tooth. We wanted to be back at our hotel before dark.

"Shall we walk back?" I asked my wife. My feet ached. I believe hers did as well.

"Hmmm. How about the Trolley instead?"

Our walk was an adventure. San Diego is an amazing place and there are fewer ways to really get to know the city than to hit the pavement. That being said, the San Diego public transit system never looked so good as it did that afternoon, acting as a time machine, bringing us back to modern day living.

Our journey, more or less.