SAN DIEGO - Part 4 - BALBOA PARK.......

Balboa Park is an amazing part of San Diego.  We thoroughly enjoyed our
time there.


In 2015 Balboa Park will celebrate their centennial - 100 years since the Panama-California Exposition.  Balboa Park consists of 1400 acres, and one of the first steps for the beautification of the park was taken by a woman named Kate Sessions.  In 1892 she vowed to plant 100 trees and shrubs a year as long as she lived, at no cost to the Park, or the city.  She kept her word.  Balboa Park is a living memorial to a woman who brought much beauty to the area.

San Diego played host to the Panama-California Exposition in 1915, and the name City Park was not dignified enough.  The park was renamed Balboa Park in honor of Spanish-born Vasco Nunez de Balboa.

De Balboa was the first European to spot the Pacific Ocean while exploring Panama.

Many of the buildings in Balboa Park
remain today as they were in the early 1900's.  These include the San Diego Museum of Art, the Spreckles Organ Pavilion, home of the world's
largest pipe organ, Casa de Balboa, Casa de Prado, the Botanical Gardens, and many many more.
Below you will see the Spreckles Organ Pavilion.

Our only disappointment was that the organ is only open one day a week, when they give an afternoon concert.  What an amazing experience that would have been, but again, too much to do, not enough time.



The San Diego Zoo is also a part of the Balboa Park complex.  We saw sidewalk musicians playing, real artists painting the old fashioned way, outside, the beautiful botanical gardens inside display, more things than I can even begin to mention.

 

Here you see the painter and musician.

 

Here are the artisans center and Casa Del Prado Theater. 

 And down here is the Botanical Gardens building, and one of the other unique buildings.  I can't begin to name them all, but all were beautiful.

You could spend days in Balboa Park and still not see it all.  There are concerts, art classes, museums, a carousel, (which hadn't opened for the season yet), theater performances, just a little bit of everything.    I hope there is never an earth-quake that will drop California into the ocean - how sad that only the sea creatures would be able to see all this beauty. 

Enough for my rambling today.  Sunday I will share a few of the miscellaneous San Diego gems, and when I decide to continue my 3 week adventure, will start another series.  In the meantime, stay safe and God Bless.