California (San Diego Area)
Downtown San Diego

Always vibrant and active, downtown San Diego is the best place to start exploring. Since the late 1970s, several blocks of Twenties architecture have been stylishly renovated, while the sleek modern bank buildings symbolize the city’s growing economic significance on the Pacific Rim. Downtown is safe by day, but can be unwelcoming at night, and you should confine your after-dark visits to the restaurants and clubs of the comparatively well-lit and well-policed Gaslamp District.

The tall Moorish archways of the Santa Fe Railroad Depot, at the western end of Broadway, built in 1915, still evoke a sense of grandeur. Broadway slices through the middle of downtown, at its most hectic between Fourth and Fifth avenues.

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Shoppers, sailors, yuppies and street bums linger around the fountains outside Horton Plaza (Mon–Sat 10am–9pm, Sun 11am–7pm), San Diego’s major upmarket shopping venue. Head for the open-air eating places on its top level; the food may be more expensive than in the streets, but it’s fun to sit over a coffee and watch the parade go by. Take time on your way out to visit the 21ft-tall Jessop Clock on level one, made for the California State Fair of 1907.

South of Broadway, a few blocks and yet a world away from Horton Plaza, the sixteen-block Gaslamp District, heart of frontier San Diego, is now filled with smart streets lined with classy cafes, antique stores, art galleries – and gas lamps (albeit powered by electricity). A tad artificial it may be, but its late nineteenth-century buildings are intriguing to explore. Worth a peek is the Horton Grand, 311 Island Ave, a reconstruction of two nineteenth-century hotels originally located a few blocks away (tours Wed 3pm; tel 619/544-1886).

West of downtown, the Embarcadero pathway follows the curve of the bay, and leads to the Maritime Museum, 1306 N Harbor Drive (daily 9am–8pm; $5), where the most interesting of three vintage sailing craft is the Star of India, built in 1863 and now the world’s oldest still-afloat merchant ship.