Back on the Pacific Coast Highway!

Good Evening my precious Disciples!

Another beautiful day in the life of “An Italian Across America”.

We left Martinez, CA and the San Francisco Bay this morning around noon, after having a nice breakfast with our friend Doug in a very good spot where the locals go. I had a Club Sandwich that was quite good!

After driving for quite some time on I-680 and then I-880, we then arrived to the city of Santa Cruz, where people are apparently ALWAYS surfing! I don’t blame them, as they really do get some good surf up there.

After a little drive through downtown Santa Cruz, where we decided to put the top down and enjoy the warm California sun (not the air, that on the other hand was chilly!), we went back on California 1.

We headed south to the city of Monterey, CA, where we stopped at the local visitor information center.

You all know I sometimes go crazy for weird road signs, and if you paid enough attention, you might have noticed that from all the pictures you see on the Flickr website. In Monterey I found one of the nicest ones:

After we left the Visitor Center we drove down to famous Cannery Row, the waterfront Street in Monterey that was (a long time ago) the site of several different Sardines Canning Companies.

There’s nothing left of it, other than the buildings. The area is incredibly well preserved, and very touristy.

We then drove to the city of Carmel, and Carmel-By-The-Sea, where we visited the one of the many Franciscan Missions along the Mission Trail.

I fell in love with Carmel, it would be such a neat place where to live, but also so expensive! It reminds me of the Emerald Coast in Sardinia, and it honestly doesn't surprise me as many Hollywood actors also live here.

We left Carmel and went back on California One where, after a few miles on the road, we encoutered the beginning (or the end, depending on where you started) of the "Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park".

The wildfires of these previous days certainly damaged the area, but still, the place had something magical to it that I can't explain, so wild, and so beautiful.

This is how some of the areas along the Pacific Coast Highway looked like this afternoon while we were passing through:

We then stopped for some pictures at Nepenthe and Phoenix Cafe:

I also had to take a picture of one of the numerous signs indicating the distance from here to our next stop, Los Angeles (and Hearst Castle tomorrow morning):

This evening I don't have a very good Internet connection, so I better stop here, otherwise it's going to take me the whole night to upload pictures and keep writing!

Have a good night folks, I'm looking right now at the Pacific Ocean over the San Simeon Coast Line, smells like home...

Nico