Balboa park - San Diego

TRAVEL BY NIC…….The Perpetual Tourist!

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Balboa Park – San Diego

So where can you take in BEAUTIFUL architecture, have a plethora of museums available to you, performing arts theatres, restaurants and beautiful manicured gardens everywhere you look?!  Balboa Park!  Plan on spending the WHOLE day!

There is no cost to wander around the beautiful grounds, it is a photographers  playground!  Don’t be surprised to see wedding parties throughout the park.  If you choose to go into the museums the cost will vary.  We went to view a Chocolate Exhibit, so it only cost us $17 per person to see the exhibit in the Natural History Museum, and then we had access to wonder through the rest of the museum.  There are a total of 14 museums, so if you’d like to spend the whole day and experience it all!  Here are 2 of the options: 1). $49 per person for access to all 14 museums or 2). $39 per person for access to 5 of the museums.

Wanna hear about the Chocolate Exhibit in the Natural History Museum?!  As soon as you enter the exhibit you smell the chocolate scent being pumped through the rooms.  You’re so desperate for chocolate by the time you end the tour that you end up spending all you money in the chocolate store!  In the store you will find Hersey’s, but you will also find Swiss, French, and other original chocolates from around the world.  Nothing like starting out with info about the end of the tour rather than the beginning of the tour!!  I thought the exhibit was ok.  I loved the beginning of the tour where we see how chocolate (cacao) starts in pods hanging from trees.  I learned that no machine can harvest the cacao off the trees; it’s all done by hand.  Once the pod is open the beans inside remind me of coffee beans.  Chocolate was 1^st served to Kings as a very bitter drink.  Eventually the Europeans got their hands on the cacao beans and they figured out how to add sugar to the bitter bean.  Finely, Nestle was able to make a milk chocolate which is more difficult than one may think, trying to keep the oil from separating from the milk was tricky!  So why was the exhibit just ok?  I wish they would have had even more displays, and some of them were dimly lit.  PLUS……after smelling chocolate through the whole experience I was totally hoping to see chocolate being made, or a free sample….but no, just a store where we spent our money!

So on this posting I’m going to load you up with photos because every topic deserves some awesome representation!  So here’s a little history about the park.  Balboa Park started with 1400 acres of land when a wealthy contributor Kate Sessions offered to plant 100 trees a year within the park as well as donating other trees & shrubs throughout San Diego, if she could have 32 acres within the park boundaries for a commercial nursery.  So there you go, which came 1^st  the beautiful gardens or the beautiful buildings?  Answer:  The beautiful foliage!

The next big change to the park was when it hosted the 1^st Worlds Fair!  The 1915-1916 Panama-California Exposition.  Where several of the Parks beautiful building  were added.  More extensive landscaping  was done and the park started being called the “Garden Fair”.  Outside the building housing the Natural History Museum you will gasp at the size of the parks landmark tree, the Moreton Bay fig.  This tree was planted before 1915 and is over 60 feet tall with a spread of 120 feet! 

 

The Famous San Diego Zoo was established on the grounds the 2^nd year of the exposition.

But wait……the park hosted another World’s Fair in 1935-26.  The California Pacific International Exposition.  So even more beautiful buildings and theatres were added.  I’m sure I’m not giving Balboa Park it’s due justice, but I’m hoping that my photos will give you an idea of what you will encounter.  My head was spinning taking it all in!

 

Parking was free and they do have trams that work the grounds of the park.  I’d love to give you dinning advise, but we did not try any of the restaurants; However, the Prada is on my radar and I hope to dine there next time I visit.  It does look pricey, but I spotted an appetizer that I know would please my taste buds!  Let me know if you all have any recommendations!!