San Diego - Zoo, Sea World and Top Places to Go

Festival of Sail. Photo by Coast Guard News

Street Scene
Photo by freschwill

Festival of Sail

20 - 24 Aug(annual)
The annual Festival of Sail at the Maritime Museum of San Diego features more than 20 tall ships and other extraordinary vessels from around the world, and kicks off with a majestic aquatic parade in San Diego Bay.Other attractions over the five days include ship tours, pirate cannon battles and re-enactments, as well as souvenir, food and drink stalls.

Ocean Beach Jazz Festival

7 Sep (annual)
The event was first held in 2005 and past performers have included The Poncho Sanchez Band and Joey De Francesco. This year's bill features The Bad Plus, Kevin Mahogany and The Clayton Hamilton Orchestra.

Street Scene

19 - 20 Sep(annual)
Street Scene is a two-day music festival at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, featuring a plethora of performances from every type of band imaginable. In 2008 headliners include Beck, The Hives and Hot Chip.The event is well-established and along with Coachella is one of the biggest music festivals in California, annually attracting over 100,000 people.

San Diego Carnaval

Feb (annual)
From stunning ensembles in feathered costumes and mesmerising Capoeira performances to the ubiquitous colourful Mardi Gras beads and the pulsating rhythms of the samba, for one night every year San Diego's Carnaval brings the sights and sounds of Brazilian life to the trendy 4th and B club.

San Diego Thunderboat Regatta. Photo by mbtrama

San Diego Thunderboat Regatta

19 - 21 Sep (annual)
San Diego Thunderboat Regatta
When:19 - 21 Sep (annual)
Where:Mission Bay
Cost:3-day 3-day free

Join 150,000 other enthusiastic fans for the San Diego Thunderboat Regatta on Mission Bay. The hydroplanes provide three days of fast and exciting racing for spectators

Fleet Week

Sep - Oct (annual)
The US Navy parades in the Big Bay, displaying the various types of ships and aircraft that comprise the nation's waterbound forces, including cruisers and aircraft carriers. The best viewing spots include Shelter Island, Harbor Island, the Cruise Ship Terminal and Broadway Pier.Other activities include ship tours, sports tournaments and the Navy Ball, and the event also coincides with the Miramar Air Show (12-14 October). Please visit the Fleet Week website for full details of the programme

Baleen

Cuisine Seafood, Californian
This attractive waterfront eatery is located right in the middle of Mission Bay at the Paradise Point Resort. With its lush bayfront view (and a dining deck that's sublime on warm evenings), it's easy to miss the design details indoors -- from a monkey motif that includes simians hanging off chandeliers to specialized serving platters for many of Baleen's artistically arranged dishes. Start with chilled lobster in a martini glass (but avoid sticker shock by asking the price first), a warm salad of roasted mushrooms and asparagus, or fresh oysters delivered in a small cart and shucked table-side. Then savor a selection of seafood simply grilled, wood-roasted, or saut?ed with hummus crust, honey wasabi glaze, or ginger sauce. Wood-roasted meats include Roquefort-crusted filet mignon and Sonoma Farms chicken with goat cheese dumplings and forest mushroom saut?.

Note: This is a family-oriented resort, so knee-high types may be sharing the space; service is pleasantly casual.

Cafe Pacifica

Cuisine Californian, Seafood
You can't judge a book by its cover: Inside this cozy Old Town casita, the decor is cleanly contemporary (but still romantic) and the food is anything but Mexican. Established in 1980, Cafe Pacifica serves upscale, imaginative seafood at decent prices and produces kitchen alumni who go on to enjoy local fame. Among the temptations are crab-stuffed portobello mushrooms topped with grilled asparagus, anise-scented bouillabaisse, and daily fresh fish selections served grilled with your choice of six sauces. Signature items include Hawaiian ahi with shiitake mushrooms and ginger butter, griddled mustard catfish, and the "Pomerita," a pomegranate margarita. Arrive before 6:30pm and you can take advantage of the early bird

special: entree with soup or salad and dessert for $26.

Candelas restaurant, San Diego, CA. Photo by Salt Fired

Candelas

Cuisine Mexican
This Gaslamp Quarter restaurant will forever alter your notion of Mexican food. If you're looking for tacos and burritos, go somewhere else. But if you're in the mood for a sophisticated, romantic fine dining experience, look no further than Candelas. Owner Alberto Mestre and executive chef Eduardo Baeza are both natives of Mexico City, and brought with them that city's culinary influences, which often blend Mexican and European elements. After all, not so long ago Spanish and French flags flew over Mexico. Look for main courses like baked lamb chops covered with mustard, basil, and garlic crust on a bed of saut?ed sweet peppers, and sea bass in grape sauce. The chef's signature creation is langosta Baeza: fresh lobster in its shell, stuffed with mushrooms, chiles, onions, bacon, and tequila. Awesome. Candelas also has a sexy lounge next door

Gringo's

Cuisine Mexican
This upscale space may have a downscale name, but it bears little resemblance to typical Mexican restaurants. It's quite agreeable to dine in, with warm woods, cool flagstone, and trendy lighting providing a modern feel; the large patio is primed with heaters and fire pits most evenings. Although the menu does offer a tip of the hat to dishes the average gringo will recognize (quesadillas, fajitas, burritos), flip it over and you'll see that the focus is on regional specialties from all over Mexico, the food of Oaxaca, the Yucatan, and Mexico's Pacific Coast. So, a chicken breast is stuffed with goat cheese and corn and then lathered in a sauce of huitlacoche (a delicious fungus that grows on corn); a poblano chile is stuffed with picadillo and draped in a walnut cream sauce and a drizzle of pomegranate reduction. The margarita options are well worth inspection (with more than 100 tequilas available), as is the selection of Mexican wines. Sunday brunch is served from 10am to 3pm.

Island Prime

Cuisine Seafood
With its over-the-water dining, patio with fireplace, plentiful free parking, and spectacular bay and skyline views, it would be easy to understand if Island Prime didn't even bother to make its food interesting. But executive chef/partner Deborah Scott isn't just going through the motions here. With dishes like the starter of shaved corn with black truffle and fresh herbs; fennel-crusted diver scallops; cedar-plank-roasted salmon with cucumber salsa and black linguini; and porcini-dusted rack of Colorado lamb with Moroccan-spiced tomato jam, the views actually have some competition. The restaurant's C-Level Lounge serves lunch and has a bar menu of both food and specialty cocktails. Tip: If you're stuck at Lindbergh Field, Island Prime is only a 10- to 15-minute walk from Terminal 1. Scott is also the mastermind behind the successful eateries Kemo Sabe and Indigo Grill. Both serve a culinary mishmash of Pacific Coast and Mexican/Southwestern cuisines to good effect and are worth a visit. Kemo Sabe is at 3958 Fifth Ave., Hillcrest

Nine-Ten

Cuisine Californian
This warmly stylish and understated space is the place for market-fresh cuisine, prepared by Jason Knibb, another member of San Diego's cadre of skilled young chefs. Knibb, who was mentored by such culinary figures as Wolfgang Puck, Roy Yamaguchi, and Hans Rockenwagner, presides over a shape-shifting, seasonal menu that's best enjoyed via small-plate grazings -- past offerings have included espresso and chocolate-braised boneless short ribs, Maine scallops with apple risotto, and harissa marinated shrimp. Or better yet, turn yourself over to the "Mercy of the Chef," a five-course tasting menu for $70, or $110 with wine pairings (your whole table has to play along, though). When you're looking for a classy fine-dining experience -- without the old-guard attitude -- this hotel eatery fits the bill very nicely

Cabrillo National Monument. Photo by San Diego Shooter

Photo by Jill - Glossy Veneer


Museum of Contemporary Art
Photo by rybolov

Cabrillo National Monument

Breathtaking views mingle with the early history of San Diego, which began when Juan Rodr?guez Cabrillo arrived in 1542. His statue dominates the tip of Point Loma, 422 feet above sea level, which is also a vantage point for watching migrating Pacific gray whales en route from the Arctic Ocean to Baja California (and back again) December through March. A self-guided tour of the restored lighthouse, built in 1855, illuminates what life was like here more than a century ago (fog and low clouds made the lighthouse ineffective, so another was built close to the water in 1891).

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego Downtown

The city's latest cultural icon is the Museum of Contemporary Art's new downtown space, known as the Jacobs and Copley Buildings. The annex is boldly grafted onto the end of the historic Santa Fe Depot, built in 1915, and transforms what had been the train station's baggage building into a state-of-the-art museum and educational facility. Designed by the architect responsible for the Warhol museum in Pittsburgh and the Museo Picasso in Malaga, Spain, the new wing provides an additional 30,000 feet of programming space. The expansion also features permanent, site-specific work by artists Richard Serra, Jenny Holzer, and others. Across the street at America Plaza are MCASD's original downtown galleries and gift store (MCASD's flagship museum is in La Jolla). Lectures and special events for adults and children are also offered, and the first Thursday evening of every month is "TNT" (Thursday Night Thing), an engaging music and arts program that's part cocktail party, part concert, part gallery opening. Free tours are given on Thursday at 6pm and weekends at 2pm.

San Diego Wild Animal Park. Photo by tychay

Photo by rickycliphoto

San Diego Wild Animal Park

Thirty-four miles north of San Diego, outside of Escondido, this "zoo of the future" will transport you to the African plains and other faraway landscapes. Originally a breeding facility for the San Diego Zoo, the 1,800-acre Wild Animal Park now holds 3,500 animals representing some 430 different species. What makes the park unique is that many of the animals roam freely in vast enclosures, allowing giraffes to interact with antelopes, much as they would in Africa. You'll find the largest crash of rhinos at any zoological facility in the world, an exhibit for the endangered California condor, and a mature landscape of exotic vegetation from many corners of the globe. Although the San Diego Zoo may be "world famous," it's the Wild Animal Park that many visitors celebrate as their favorite.

Torrey Pines State Reserve

The rare Torrey pine tree grows in only two places in the world: Santa Rosa Island, 175 miles northwest of San Diego, and here, at the north end of La Jolla. Even if the twisted shape of these awkwardly beautiful trees doesn't lure you to this spot, the equally scarce undeveloped coastal scenery should. The city first donated 369 acres as a public park, and the 1,750-acre reserve was established in 1921, from a gift by Ellen Browning Scripps. The reserve encompasses the beach below, as well as a lagoon immediately north, but the focus is the 300-foot-high, water-carved limestone bluffs, which provide a precarious footing for the trees. In spring, the wildflower show includes bush poppies, Cleveland sage, agave, and yucca. A half-dozen trails (all under 1.5 miles in length) travel from the road to the cliff edge or down to the beach, and there's a small visitor center, built in the traditional adobe style of the Hopi Indians and featuring a lovely 12-minute video about the park. Watch for migrating gray whales in winter or dolphins that patrol these shores year-round. For a taste of what Southern California's coast looked like a couple hundred years ago, this delicate spot is one of San Diego's unique treasures. Interpretive nature walks are held weekends and holidays at 10am and 2pm. Note: There are no facilities for food or drinks inside the park. You can bring a picnic lunch, but you have to eat it on the beach -- food and drink (other than water) are not allowed in the upper portion of the reserve.

SeaWorld@San Diego. Photo by CokeeOrg

SeaWorld San Diego
Photo by chrisphoto


San Diego Air & Space Museum
Photo by Chris Radcliff

SeaWorld San Diego

One of California's most heavily marketed attractions, SeaWorld, which opened here in 1964, is a big draw for a number of visitors coming to San Diego. With each passing year the educational pretext increasingly takes a back seat to slick shows and rides, but the park -- owned by the Anheuser-Busch Corporation -- is perhaps still the country's premiere showplace for marine life, made politically correct with a nominally informative atmosphere. At its heart, SeaWorld is a shoreside family entertainment center where the performers are dolphins, otters, sea lions, orcas, and seals. The 20-minute shows run several times each throughout the day, with visitors rotating through the various open-air amphitheaters and aquarium features.

San Diego Air & Space Museum

The other big kid-pleaser of the museums (along with the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, above), this popular facility has more than 60 aircraft on display, providing an overview of the nation's aeronautical history, from the days of hot-air balloons to the space age. It emphasizes local aviation history, particularly the construction here of the Spirit of St. Louis. Highlights include the Apollo 9 Command Module and the new Planetary Theater, which allows visitors to take an interactive journey through our galaxy. There's also a motion simulator ride that puts you at the controls of an F-22 fighter jet. The museum is housed in a cylindrical hall built by the Ford Motor Company in 1935 (for the park's second international expo), and has an imaginative gift shop with items like old-fashioned leather flight hoods and new-fashioned freeze-dried astronaut ice cream. Allow at least an hour for your visit.

Edo period gosho ningyo (palace dolls) at Mingei International Museum.
Photo by sleight82

Mingei International Museum

This captivating museum (pronounced "Min-gay," meaning "art of the people" in Japanese) offers changing exhibitions generally describable as folk art. The rotating exhibits -- usually four at a time -- feature artists from countries across the globe; displays include textiles, costumes, jewelry, toys, pottery, paintings, and sculpture. The permanent collection includes whimsical contemporary sculptures by the late French artist Niki de Saint Phalle, who made San Diego her home in 1993. Martha Longenecker, a potter and professor emeritus of art at San Diego State University, opened the museum in 1978. It is one of only a few major museums in the United States devoted to folk crafts on a worldwide scale, and well worth a look. Allow half an hour to an hour to view the exhibits; there's also a wonderful gift store that's worth a visit on its own. An Escondido branch has additional exhibits.

Marston House

Noted San Diego architect Irving Gill designed this Craftsman house in 1905 for George Marston, a local businessman and philanthropist. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and now managed by the San Diego Historical Society, the house is a classic example of prairie-style architecture, reminiscent of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Some of its interesting features are wide hallways, brick fireplaces, and redwood paneling. Opened to the public in 1991, it is now fully furnished with Roycroft, Stickley, and Limbert pieces, as well as art pottery. Tours take about 45 minutes