Mission to see a mission
Two things we love to do when we visit SoCal, besides see friends of course, is – no, not go to Disneyland, but to go to Joshua Tree National Park and Mission San Juan Capistrano. Given it’s mid-summer we are giving the desert-located Joshua Tree a miss this trip, but we did go to San Juan Capistrano today. The mission here is the 7th of the 21 missions founded between 1769 and 1833 in what is now California by Franciscan Catholic priests with the aim of converting the Native Americans.
Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded in 1776 by Father Junipero Serra. It was named for Giovanni de Capistrano, who was a 15th-century Italian theologian. San Juan Capistrano contains, we believe, the oldest building in California that is still in use – “Serra’s Chapel” or “Father Serra’s Church” which was built in 1782. It is also the only extant structure where it has been documented that Father Serra celebrated Mass. The chapel is currently undergoing restoration, so some of its paintwork is looking beautiful (as you’ll see in the pics below).
Over the years, we have seen several of the 21 missions, but San Juan Capistrano is probably the largest and most beautifully maintained of those still able to be seen today. Like many historic places here (and in Australia) it now largely survives through the work of volunteers. Some of you may know of it for the annual migration of cliff swallows, made famous by the song “When the swallows come back to Capistrano”.
We love visiting the missions – they are beautiful. It occurred to me this trip that visiting the missions is more like visiting Japanese temples than European cathedrals, mainly because the missions, like the temples, tend to be complexes comprising church/chapels, other buildings in which people lived and/or worked, and gardens.
As well as visiting the old mission grounds, we briefly checked out the new Mission Basilica and, across the railway line, the Los Rios Historic District, which has buildings dating to 1794 and is apparently the oldest continually occupied neighborhood in California. It is always fun to wander around, though is pretty commercialised these days.
Arriving in San Diego
From San Juan Capistrano to San Diego, it’s a very fast drive of a bit over an hour on the I-5 (if the traffic is flowing) and, fortunately for us, the traffic flowed well most of the way, so we arrived in Old Town San Diego in time for a late-ish lunch at our sentimental favourite, Coyote Cafe. Mexican food isn’t easy for me – but they had corn tortillas and grilled chicken (not to mention margaritas) so I was right.
Old Town San Diego has three main areas (to our minds anyhow): the tourist-focused shopping and dining precinct, Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, and Heritage Park. After eating in the first, we moved pretty quickly on to the two parts we wanted to see again, starting with the Heritage Park.
Heritage Park was created to preserve a small number of examples of San Diego’s historic Victorian architecture including Italianate, Stick-Eastlake, Queen Anne and classic revival styles. The properties were all relocated from their original locations and are rather beautiful. You can’t enter most of them which makes the historical experience a bit shallow, but we love to see them anyhow.
Christian House, which we’ve included in our slide-show, is a Queen Anne–style house built in 1889 by Harfield Christian, while Temple Beth Israel, built the same year, was the city’s first synagogue.
Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, which was established in 1968, commemorates the early days of the town of San Diego and includes many historic buildings from the period 1820 to 1870. In 2005 and 2006, it was apparently the most visited state park in California.
We pottered around the park’s many buildings, most now home to various tourist-attracting businesses, but one is a museum, and we spent a little time in it, Casa de Estudillo. It was built by José Antonio Estudillo in 1827 and was occupied by the family until 1887. He was a significant citizen of the town, and is named as one of the men behind Balboa Park (about which you’ll read in our next post). The house is an adobe construction – originally L-shaped, and later expanded to a U-shape – but much of its furnishing disconcertingly Victorian. It is currently being worked on, so most of the rooms were not “set up” properly, but the house and grounds still give a good sense of the life at the times of a well-to-do family.
Apparently, the 1884-published novel, Ramona, written by Helen Hunt Jackson, helped save the house because readers, believing the marriage of the titular character “occurred” in this house, started coming to see it, turning it into a tourist attraction.
Doing tapas, San Diego-style
We finished our Old Town ramblings around 4pm, so made our way to our hotel and spent a few hours there, before venturing out in the evening to Bar Bodega in Little Italy, where we felt we were the only people over 40 (and we are well over that, besides!) We sat outside at a little high bar table (the in thing these days here and in Australia). The menu is primarily tapas, which suited us fine. We had a cheese plate of three sheep and goat’s cheeses (with olives and marcona almonds), the traditional tapas of potatoes bravas, and a delicious ceviche of halibut. And that was all we felt like. How abstemious of us. (Oh, but I did also drink a Spanish Cava.)
After this, we decided to walk down to the waterfront, and ran across the beautifully lit up San Diego County Administration Center. It looked 1930s to me, and so it turned out to be. Wikipedia describes it as “a historic Beaux-Arts/Spanish Revival-style building”, which was completed in 1938. As its name suggests, it contains the offices of the Government of San Diego County. I don’t recollect walking this way on previous trips here, so it was a nice little surprise.
Colour
I haven’t mentioned the lovely colour we’ve been surrounded by during our time here in California. There are so many summer blooming plants around, including stands of oleander, bougainvillea, crape myrtles, not to mention the occasional formal rose gardens, and many other flowers.
Today’s trivia
San Juan Capistrano’a cliff swallows migrate 6000 miles from Goya, Argentina.
Today’s images
Still
Audio
Some music from a service in the Ba
Moving
Amtrak service stopping at the minimal San Juan Capistrano station.
Lovely pictures. The picture of the Café Coyote mariachies is a hoot.
Glad you liked the coyote band Carolyn! A consolation for sitting inside, as we’d have preferred their outside seating.
As you say, Carolyn – lovely pictures and the audio was interesting, too – gave an idea of the atmosphere in the church.
Is that sign ‘Serra’s Church’ original? Rather spoils it, I think. Did you take us there – the campanario looks familiar? I know we went to Capistrano, etc.
Mum
Yes. Mum, you did go there, and would have seen the campanario. I don’t know how old that sign is, but it has been recently brightened up I think.
Lovely photos and I really like the buildings – they are beautiful. Although it’s not surprising with such a variety of cultures which have ‘lived’ there, the different buildings reflect a very distinctive cultural identity – Spanish, Spanish mission, Jewish, Art deco… Interesting to see both ‘St(reet)’ and ‘Camino’ virtually on the same sign post too. I guess the missions there were also like missions here in Australia, where communities lived, worked, taught and worshipped – hence all the buildings? Loved the coyote band art work too!
Yes, I think so Mary. Missions are probably pretty similar the world over.
And well-spotted re Street designations… St., Camino, and here Via, Paseo.