A Trolley Visit to Monterey

July 1, 2015
This morning we made a visit to the Visitor Center in Monterey and discovered the town has a free trolley that takes visitors to the high points in the city so we quickly parked our car in a nearby lot and hopped aboard for a day of sightseeing.

Before we left, Bette and I couldn't resist taking a couple of pictures of more of the California flowers that are brightening our days here.  They are so different than any we have seen in other parts of the U.S. - at least so far.

And this old tree looked like it had crawled along the ground twisting and turning as it moved.

Our first stop was at Old Fisherman's Wharf

Where we enjoyed checking out the harbor and all of the boats

as well as checking out all the restaurants and a few of the shops.  We finally settled on one of the restaurants and enjoyed very tasty fish meals.  Unfortunately we couldn't get a table by a window but we could see out the window from a distance.

We then went to Cannery Row which is a huge shopping area with lots of restaurants all in old buildings that had been used when sardine fishing was the industry in the area.

Monterey is home to John Steinbeck who wrote the novel Cannery Row about the area.  So one of the things we found in this area was statues - one of him alone

and one of him with several other well know individuals from the area

There was a tiny beach in front of the plaza area

Since we'd already eaten and none of us are shoppers we didn't stay in the area very long.  There is a wonderful aquarium in this area but we'd been told it took a minimum of three hours to go through it and we didn't have that kind of time so we again caught the trolley and just enjoyed seeing more of the area before getting off in the Historical Monterey.

Many of the original buildings that made up Monterey still stand in this area and are now used in a variety of ways. This is the old custom house that appeared to be undergoing restoration.

This was the entry to a courtyard and building now used for a hotel and museums

Outside of the above area is a wonderful little garden with this old bell hanging in it

This was the first theater in Monterey - in fact of all of California as this was one of the first settled areas

And behind the theater we found another lovely little garden filled with beautiful flowers

We then returned to our car and took the scenic drive along the ocean.  The skies were getting quite grey but it was still beautiful to see more of the seashore and its wildlife

We could see the fog moving in slowly

Unfortunately we arrived at the Point Pios lighthouse minutes after it closed so we couldn't tour it but I did take a picture.  It is the oldest continually operating lighthouse on the West Coast first lit on February 1, 1855.

After this it was time to return to our motorhomes for the night as we needed to be up and on the road in the morning to our next location