SAN DIEGO - Part 3 - OLD TOWN....................

Old Town was visited the most - we actually were there 3 different times, just too much to see and do, and still not enough time.  Old Town Was the original San Diego, up on the hill.  Old Town never did take off as the founding fathers thought it would, and died a slow death. 

As this San Diego was crumbling a very astute, wealthy, gentleman bought acres and acres of ground along the ocean. 

Everyone laughed, who would want to build down there?  Ignoring all the comments and fun being poked at him, he began construction of a few modest buildings.

Today that "joke" is the beautiful city of San Diego, and also the County seat.  Luckily there was a group that thought old San Diego should be preserved.  A lot of the buildings are original, and a lot of history is stored there.

Most of the old buildings are furnished as they were when the town was still a town. 

There were scheduled tours you could take, and the history of the town was explained as you walked through, going into the buildings.  We didn't have time to do all that, but we did learn a lot from our trolley drivers.  Not only were they drivers, they were tour guides, and we learned the history of every stop we came to.  The neat thing was, we had a different trolley driver each day and even though we passed the same stops coming and going, the stories varied as each one told something different about that particular stop.

Not only were some of the buildings very unusual, so was the plant life.  We saw things we had never seen before, didn't have a clue as to what they were, but sure had fun.

Old Town is just what it's name implies, it is a very old town, settled

200 years ago, on a hilltop several miles inland from the ocean. 

Old Town stands today, thanks to some folks with the foresight to preserve a part of California's history, so that we might see what had been, once upon a time.

Maybe someday you will get to see Old Town - and if you ever visit San Diego, be sure to take the trolley ride.  Vicki and I heard about it in the airport in Pittsburgh.  As we were waiting for our flight out we were talking to a gentleman sitting next to us, and he asked where we were going.  We told him, and that it was our first stop of our 3 week adventure.  He told us if we didn't do anything else to be sure to ride the trolley.  It would be an experience we would never forget.

We did, it was, all thanks to an unknown fellow traveler who was willing to share his experience with us.  God bless folks like that.