A Gorgeous Day In San Diego's Balboa Park
Feb 22, 2016 20:21:39 GMT
Post by maitaitom on Feb 22, 2016 20:21:39 GMT
It had literally been decades since I had visited Balboa Park in San Diego. I attended the "Harvard of the West"...San Diego State.
Tracy and I had missed the park’s 100th anniversary in 2015, but 101 is a good anniversary, too. The park actually has been around since the 1860s. Balboa Park (1,200+ acres) is larger than Central Park in NYC and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Originally the property was fairly desolate as there were very few trees. It was a woman botanist, horticulturist and landscape architect by the name of Kate Sessions who would help beautify the park. In 1892, Sessions offered to plant 100 trees a year within the park (known then as City Park) as well as donate trees and shrubs around San Diego in exchange for 32 acres of land within the park boundaries to be used for her commercial nursery. Knowing it would be hosting the Panama-California Exposition in 1915, City Park was renamed a few years earlier to Balboa Park in honor of Spanish-born Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the first European to spot the Pacific Ocean while exploring in Panama.
In our six hours at the park, we climbed a tower that had been closed to the public for 80 years, checked out some different type of art, visited some of my favorite SD sports stars, found some unique statuary, stepped inside the most photographed building in the park (beautiful plants insode), made a quick visit to a camellia festival, toured a historical house owned by a gentleman who ran for mayor of San Diego twice...and we even had time to fit in a martini and enjoy a gloriously warm San Diego winter’s day. Here's a link about our day with lots of photos. I highly recommend a visit here if you're in town.
travelswithmaitaitom.com/21708-2/
Tracy and I had missed the park’s 100th anniversary in 2015, but 101 is a good anniversary, too. The park actually has been around since the 1860s. Balboa Park (1,200+ acres) is larger than Central Park in NYC and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Originally the property was fairly desolate as there were very few trees. It was a woman botanist, horticulturist and landscape architect by the name of Kate Sessions who would help beautify the park. In 1892, Sessions offered to plant 100 trees a year within the park (known then as City Park) as well as donate trees and shrubs around San Diego in exchange for 32 acres of land within the park boundaries to be used for her commercial nursery. Knowing it would be hosting the Panama-California Exposition in 1915, City Park was renamed a few years earlier to Balboa Park in honor of Spanish-born Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the first European to spot the Pacific Ocean while exploring in Panama.
In our six hours at the park, we climbed a tower that had been closed to the public for 80 years, checked out some different type of art, visited some of my favorite SD sports stars, found some unique statuary, stepped inside the most photographed building in the park (beautiful plants insode), made a quick visit to a camellia festival, toured a historical house owned by a gentleman who ran for mayor of San Diego twice...and we even had time to fit in a martini and enjoy a gloriously warm San Diego winter’s day. Here's a link about our day with lots of photos. I highly recommend a visit here if you're in town.
travelswithmaitaitom.com/21708-2/
