San Diego's Balboa Park

This park is not only home to the famous San Diego Zoo (which we saw two years ago), but it is the location of 15 major museums, several performing art venues, gardens and many other cultural attractions. It reminded us of our Forest Park back home in St.Louis, but it has quite a bit more to see within its borders. Balboa Park is the result of a legacy of two Expositions. The 1915-16 Panama-California Exposition commemorated the opening of the Panama Canal. The park's famous El Prado pedestrian walkway features highly ornamented Spanish-Renaissance styled buildings constructed for this Exposition. The Casa del Prado and Theater is pictured below. Currently the Nutcracker is being performed there.

The 1935-36 California Pacific International Exposition, held to boost the local economy during the depression, added more cultural buildings, structures and landscaping. Those buildings had more of the southwestern architecture. We did not take the time to tour the museums of the park, that we will save for another time. We were quite satisfied just strolling around this area taking in the stunning architecture and beautiful gardens. Pictured below is the botanical building, it was built in 1915.

The lath structured building is located at the end of two reflecting ponds.  Inside the building are many tropical plants. Currently it is all decked out for Christmas with numerous poinsettia plants.

Lastly I want to show a part of the 200 foot California Tower, a famous San Diego landmark. It has a 100 bell carillon that chimes every 15 minutes. Adding also to our listening enjoyment were also a few street buskers playing a variety of musical offerings.