| Having spent most of our time in the San Diego area in Balboa
Park, we decided we ought to inspect the city waterfront. |  |
 | To the south of the
city is a shoreline drive from which we could view the city skyline and the
central harbour. This is where the huge cruise ships berth, often for no
more than a day. Cruises also leave from here. |
| Due south you look down the bay and under the Coronado Bridge
towards the naval base and Mexico. |  |
 | I guess steamboats
once crossed the harbour to Coronado. Today they run harbour dinner cruises.
This one did it without the cruise, being permanently moored. It was also
closed for refurbishment! |
| The central train station is just opposite the cruise liner
berths. This is an Amtrak Surfliner about to depart for Los Angeles and
maybe even San Francisco. The passenger coaches are double deckers. |  |
 | Some of the buildings
are very artistic either in style or in the paint job as in the case of the
Holiday Inn which consisted of two similar blocks. The shade of blue deepens
towards the ground. Very fetching! |
| The cruise ships are huge and this shot only accentuates the size
of the bow because of the parallax error. They are all part of the Holland
America Line and are named after Dutch towns called ....dam. |  |
 | There is a maritime
museum on the waterfront. Most of the exhibits are sailing ships but this
submarine is also moored there and it looks too old to be part of the
current fleet. |
| All this part of California is very artistic and there are
statues every few yards on the harbour walkway. This is a bit better than
some, but there are few that are to my taste. |  |
 | This is one of the
sailing ships which also form part of the museum. There are about five in
total. This would have been a large ship in its day. |
| This one is smaller and somewhat older. We didn't find out much
about them because parking is at a premium and we were in the camper. |  |
 | Another steamboat
waiting for the dinner trade. It was not clear whether this one actually
puts out into the bay or not, just like the last one. |
| Travelling south along the waterfront we came to the San Diego
Conference and Exhibition centre. This is an absolutely huge complex full of
the sort of artistic glasswork you would expect of a major convention
centre. |  |
 | And close by you get
the large hotels to support the conference trade. It is quite an art to
design a hotel to give the most rooms a 'sea view'. |
|