1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (97 page)

Just off the Pacific Coast Highway, many hidden natural treasures await, like this oceanside nook complete with a tiny waterfall.

Fiercely protected by its 1,500 residents, Big Sur has a dramatic loneliness about it, with angry ocean breakers on one side and a narrow curving road that snakes along the edge of the mountains. Pfeiffer State Beach is breathtaking—in fact, there’s precious little around here that’s not. Stop to take it all in with a drink or dinner at the well-known Nepenthe, with its outdoor patio suspended 800 feet above the surf. Big Sur’s stunningly sited Post Ranch Inn, perched 1,200 feet above the Pacific, is a window to vast vistas of dramatic ocean and mountains on clear days. Even when the coast is fogged in, this place breathes romance, with wood-burning stoves and indoor spa tubs in all 30 rooms. On the other side of the highway, Ventana Inn offers the same casual luxury and middle-of-nature feel. An infinitely more affordable slice of Big Sur can be yours with a reservation at Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn. A sweet place to sleep since the 1930s, the cabinlike rooms offer classic old-fashioned comfort, from antiques to woodstoves to quilt-covered beds. Equally loved is the inn’s restaurant, where locals gossip each morning over bottomless cups of coffee and hearty breakfasts.

W
HERE
: Big Sur is 150 miles south of San Francisco.
PCH
:
www.byways.org
.
H
ENRY
M
ILLER
L
IBRARY
: Tel 831-667-2574;
www.henrymiller.org
.
When:
closed Tues.
N
EPENTHE
: Tel 831-667-2345;
www.nepenthebigsur.com
.
Cost:
dinner $40.
P
OST
R
ANCH
I
NN
: Tel 800-527-2200 or 831-667-2200;
www.postranchinn.com
.
Cost:
from $550.
V
ENTANA
I
NN
: Tel 800-628-6500 or 831-667-2331;
www.ventanainn.com
.
Cost:
from $459.
D
EETJEN’S
: Tel 831-667-2377;
www.deetjens.com
.
Cost:
from $110.
B
EST TIMES
: spring and early fall for sunny, clear weather; Dec–Feb for whale-watching.

Playground of the Stars

California

Palm Springs’ history is rife with celebrity guests, but the arid climate first attracted visitors for health reasons: The Desert Inn, founded in 1909, began as a tuberculosis sanitarium. But by the 1930s the area had evolved
into an oasis for the rich and famous, becoming a booming resort town in the post-WWII years. It lured such names as Sinatra, Hope, and Liberace as well as a growing stream of increasingly mobile middle-class vacationers and residents. The Desert Inn has since closed, but today Palm Springs is reinventing itself, attracting VIPs with first-class accommodations, dining, and shopping, while Hollywood’s young glitterati and gay and lesbian vacationers discover its agreeable winter clime. The treasure chest of mid-century modern aesthetics has become a recharged magnet, and homes and hotels from that era are now some of the most desirable fixer-uppers on the market. If modernism is your thing, the style-conscious Viceroy Hotel is the place to stay during your visit.

Swimming, sunbathing, golfing, and tennis are still the pastimes of this desert oasis. Upscale resorts with world-class golf courses and spas have proliferated both here and in neighboring Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert, and several Indian casinos are within easy driving distance for those who care to roll the dice. Here in town, simple pleasure can be found by taking a ride on the aerial tramway, the steepest cable car in the U.S. It soars to the top of Mount San Jacinto for breathtaking 360-degree desert views at 8,516 feet.

More than anything, a Palm Springs visit should involve lounging by a kidney-shaped pool—especially when summer temperatures routinely hit 110°F. To take a day of dipping and reading poolside to the ultimate Hollywood-style heights, you can rent Frank Sinatra’s former Twin Palms home, a spectacular example of mid-century architecture located in the heart of Palm Springs’ former Movie Colony. It’s 4,500 square feet of Ol’ Blue Eyes memories (check out the chip in the sink made when Sinatra threw a bottle), including three bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and a piano-shaped pool. Or go the romantically swank route—perhaps for a honeymoon—by renting the home where Elvis Presley honeymooned with Priscilla in 1967. It’s even got a circular bedroom fit for a king.

Palm Canyon Drive is home to many of the city’s best shops, restaurants, and boutiques.

More traditional romance can be found at two of Palm Springs’ most characterful inns. The lovely Willows Historic Palm Springs Inn, the honeymoon choice for Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, is a restored 1930s Mediterranean villa with eight sumptuous suites tucked into the hillside of San Jacinto. The Korakia, the dreamy Moroccan-inspired 1920s former home of an artist, features simple rooms with flowing white curtains and a mix of exotic antiques.

W
HERE
: 120 miles east of Los Angeles.
Visitor info:
Tel 800-347-7746 or 760-778-8418;
www.palm-springs.org
.
T
HE
V
ICEROY
: Tel 800-237-3687 or 760-320-4117;
www.viceroypalmsprings.com
.
Cost:
from $109 (off-peak), from $149 (peak).
A
ERIAL
T
RAMWAY
: Tel 888-515-T
RAM
or 760-325-1391;
www.pstramway.com
.
Cost:
$22.
T
WIN
P
ALMS
: rent through Time and Place, tel 866-244-1800 or 208-720-3644;
www.timeandplace.com
.
Cost:
$2,150 per night.
E
LVIS
H
ONEYMOON
H
OUSE
: Tel 760-322-1192;
www.elvishoneymoon.com
.
Cost:
from $1,500 per night.
T
HE
W
ILLOWS
H
ISTORIC
P
ALM
S
PRINGS
I
NN
: Tel 800-966-9597 or 760-320-0771;
www.thewillowspalmsprings.com
Cost:
from $250 (off-peak), from $275 (peak).
T
HE
K
ORAKIA
: Tel 760-864-6411;
www.korakia.com
.
Cost:
from $159.
B
EST TIMES
: early Jan for the Palm Springs International Film Festival (
www.psfilmfest.org
); Oct–Apr for weather.

A Rose Is a Rose Is a Rose

California

Founded in 1873 by migrants from the Midwest, Pasadena remains in many ways a relatively bucolic, prim foothills suburb that feels at least a few states away from nearby Los Angeles in pace and personality. But every year
on New Year’s Day it moves to the No. 1 spot on the country’s radar—with its televised Tournament of Roses Parade and Rose Bowl football game.

First held in 1890, the parade is one of California’s favorite and most celebrated annual events, when the million people lining the 5.5-mile route along Orange Grove and Colorado Boulevard are far outnumbered by the quantity of flowers used to decorate the brilliantly colored and exotically aromatic floats. Later that afternoon, the Rose Bowl game, the first-ever national post-season collegiate game in 1902 and therefore known as the “Grandaddy of Them All,” is a part of the Bowl Championship Series. Less well known but also fun is the area’s
other
spectacle, the Doo Dah Parade. For 30 years on the weekend before Thanksgiving, a ragtag gang that includes the Synchronized Briefcase Drill Team, the Hello Dalai Lamas, and many other pun-ridden groups shambles down Raymond and part of Colorado Boulevard, spraying onlookers with Cheez Whiz, while the crowd throws tortillas. It’s anti-organization and very much pro-laughter.

Among the amusing floats at the Rose Parade was one featuring airplanes, King Kong, and the Empire State Building.

For the rest of the year, visitors to Pasadena are drawn to the Norton Simon Museum (its interior was designed by Frank Gehry), one of the country’s best private collections, exemplary in both Impressionist and classic art. A remarkable roster includes works by Degas, Kandinsky, and Rembrandt; Goya’s
Disasters of War
and Picasso’s
Girl with Guitar;
and one of the world’s greatest collections of South Asian sculpture. The other jewel in Pasadena’s crown is the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, a 207-acre hilltop Italianate estate initially built by the eponymous railroad baron to be his private residence. Its world-class collection includes a Gutenberg Bible from the 15th century and the earliest known manuscript of Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales.
Gainsborough’s
Blue Boy
is complemented by Sir Thomas Lawrence’s
Pinkie.
Head outside for the astoundingly large and lush botanical gardens, some parts of them so authentically Japanese that Hollywood filmed scenes here for
Memoirs of a Geisha.
Sit down in the middle of it, and enjoy a moment’s respite at the museum’s much-loved tearoom where terraces overlook the Rose Garden and its 1,000-variety display.

W
HERE
: 15 miles northwest of Hollywood.
T
OURNAMENT OF
R
OSES
: Parade begins at corner of Ellis St. and Orange Grove Blvd., ends at Villa St. Tel 626-449-4100;
www.tournamentofroses.com
.
Cost:
parade seating
from $40; Bowl game tickets $135.
When:
Jan 1.
N
ORTON
S
IMON
M
USEUM
: Tel 626-449-6840;
www.nortonsimon.org
.
H
UNTINGTON
L
IBRARY AND
G
ARDENS
: San Marino. Tel 626-405-2100;
www.huntington.org
.
Cost:
high tea $15.
B
EST TIMES
: balmy off-season Sept–Apr; 2nd Sun of every month for the Rose Bowl Fleamarket; Sun before Thanksgiving (usually) for the Pasadena Doo Dah Parade (
www.pasadenadoodahparade.info
).

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