San Diego

Day 1 · ~5.9 km

1. 

   1

   Star of India

   An iron windjammer of 1863, still seaworthy — the world's oldest active sailing ship

   Midday · 45 min · $$

   Go below. The main deck is the postcard, but the ship's story is between decks: the iron frames of the hull, the cramped emigrant berths partitioned off for families crossing to New Zealand, the cabins aft. Back on deck, look up — the rig is working gear rather than decoration, and she is still taken out under sail.

2. 

   2

   Spruce Street Suspension Bridge

   A 1912 footbridge, 375 feet of swaying deck strung over a wooded canyon

   Morning · 20 min · free

   Walk out and stop in the middle, where the deck flexes under every step and the canyon floor is a long way down through the eucalyptus. Cross to the far side and take the path down into the canyon: the span seen from underneath, strung between its towers with the trees closing over it, is the better photograph by some distance. The crossing itself takes a minute — the walk in, through streets of old houses, is the rest of the visit.

3. 

   3

   Cabrillo Bridge

   The 1914 arched approach carrying El Prado across a canyon and a freeway

   Morning · 20 min · free

   Walk it rather than drive it. Seven arches lift the roadway some 120 feet above the canyon floor, and from the parapet you look straight down onto State Route 163 threading through the trees, then up at the California Tower closing the far end. Come at it from the Sixth Avenue side for the full approach: this was built as the fair's front door, and it still behaves like one.

4. 

   4

   El Prado

   The park's central promenade, walled on both sides by the pavilions of two world's fairs

   Any time · 60 min · free

   Walk the whole length, from the bridge to the fountain at the east end, and let the arcade do the work: a continuous covered walkway, plazas opening off it, towers and domes stacked above. Stop in the Plaza de Panama, which spent decades as a car park until the stalls were pulled out in 2013, though traffic still crosses it. Then double back after dark — the facades are lit, the buskers have gone, and the promenade is a different street.

5. 

   5

   Botanical Building and Lily Pond

   A slatted wooden plant house of 1915, doubled end to end in its reflecting pond

   Morning · 30 min · free

   Go inside and look up. The walls and the roof are lath — thousands of thin wooden strips laid with gaps between them — so the light comes in striped and moving, and the planting underneath is chosen for exactly that light: ferns, palms, orchids, cycads. Outside, the pond in front repeats the whole facade, and the angle everyone wants is from the far end of the water, taken low.

6. 

   6

   California Tower and Museum of Us

   Goodhue's tiled tower and quadrangle of 1915, over an anthropology museum that renamed itself

   Midday · 90 min · $$

   Look at the west front from the bridge end before you go in: the tower and the domed California Building carry the densest carving in the park, cut by the Piccirilli Brothers, and they set the pattern every other facade here imitates. Inside, the galleries run from the Kumeyaay of this region to Maya casts and Egyptian coffins. The tower is the other half of the visit, ending on an open stage under the carillon with the park and the bay spread out below.