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Pacific
Grove – California
Central Coast
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What
could you call a place that has a 5,000
acre forest in the back, and a ten mile
wide ocean garden park in front.
Surely, this place can not be real.
To
make it easier to guess, but really
more unbelievable, consider this:
Pebble Beach is on one side, and the
Monterey Bay Aquarium on the other.
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More
clues? Here you find the world’s most
photographed lighthouse, a parade for
butterflies, even a holiday for the heroic
little insects.
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Amazing
other things, too, like deer roam
free in the cemetery, and you say
… This must be a fictional
place.
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It
has to be experienced to be believed.
After spending a while in Pacific
Grove, getting to know some about these
folks, in this outrageous setting, a
riddle emerges.
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Did
Pacific Grove become so well preserved
in such harmony with humans because of
the insight and will of a special
people who chose here to live?
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Or,
did this place make them so? Do eggs
lay chickens? Are there lessons
here?
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Folks
here call this town, in spite of all its
superlatives, just Home. As in Hometown.
The
level of civic participation here is so high,
that it’s called “Hometown USA.” A nice
little understatement for such an
extraordinary place. It is as if they said,
“what is the very best thing that could be
said of us here in Pacific Grove?”
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And,
in the midst of all this natural marvel, they
decided that all of the best ideals of an American
community was what they could aspire to.
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All
the front of Pacific Grove, along the ocean, is a
grand natural esplanade of a park. The City owns
the beaches from Lovers Point to Asilomar. Also,
the waters are a city park, Pacific Grove Marine
Gardens. This could have been a row of big hotels,
instead it is a natural treasure.
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Pacific
Grove was
founded as a summer health camp, and a religious
retreat. Both motivations contributed to the
present civic mentality. Boozing was distinctly
discouraged in the early days, and today, you won’t
find bars and cocktail lounges along the whole
waterfront from Lovers’ Point to
Asilomar.
The village
is good for walking. More than 500 Victorians have
been restored, many ethnic neighborhood shops has
special appeal, bookstores, coffee shops, bakeries,
galleries make a hike rewarding.
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For
meals there’s an great variety; including
outstanding French, California, Austrian and
Basque-Early California. This last mention is the
creation of Pierre Bain, a nouveau California
Cuisine genius, whose Fandango will likely start a
new restaurant trend. Another great culinary
talent, this one from El Salvador, has an
outstanding seafood favorite, the Fish Wife. These
unique restaurants help PG earn high marks as a
dining
destination.
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Two,
different, equally distinctive French
restaurants are specially praiseworthy. Melac’s
(from the same famous Paris bistro family)-
well, maybe that’s gone for now, and Fifi’s Cafe
& Bakery, which for sure is still going as
beautiful as ever.
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The
whole western front of Pacific Grove is a
marine park. For 8 miles one can hike
unobstructed along a very fascinating coast.
It is very heartening to experience this
wilderness setting in what actually an urban
environment. This is a tide pool bonanza.
Seals, otters, anemone, shore birds.
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Go
to the Aquarium
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Tide
pools brimming with sea life are prevalent along
the walk. Steinbeck and Doc Ricketts spent much
time here. The writer studied at the Hopkins Marine
Station while a student at
Stanford.
Chin
Kee’s Squid Yard – depicted in Sweet
Thursday– was here, too.
Top notch
marine scientists and children mutually delight,
virtually shoulder to shoulder here. These are the
tide pools that inspired Ricketts and Steinbeck to
create the epic Between Pacific
Tides– a scientific work that is still
preeminent in its field.
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Pacific
Grove is not just a great hometown, but has made
itself home for one of Nature’s most stirring
nature stories. Monarch butterflies arrive each
fall, worn and weary from an incredible journey.
They
come with the same great purpose, to mate so there
could be another flight the next year by their
offspring. They stop in Santa Cruz in a eucalyptus
grove to get their wind, and fuel up for the last
leg of the trip –25 miles across open sea to get
to the trees in Pacific Grove. Then, after this
trip of a thousand miles, which took 30 days, they
cluster in trees, resting. The
whole Monarch story
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Beach
cottages and grand Victorians prevail in PG. Out by
Pebble Beach, Asilomar and the Lighthouse, some
homes seem to be built right into the sand dunes.
This area was tramped over by almost every notable
literary figure of the past century and a half. The
natural state of this exquisite wildness has
remained virtually intact.
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This
fact is in spite of eight golf course
adjacent, a world renowned conference center
and three major hotels practically within
spitting distance. The reason this has
happened must be that the people who live
here care a lot about it characteristics of
nature and have striven arduously to preserve
them.
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Sanctuary
by the sea
Asilomar
is a perfect statement of the best the Monterey
Peninsula region offers a visitor. Created in 1913
as a retreat for the YWCA, the center has become a
state park conference center.
The
setting is sublime. The coast, dunes, and forest
are excellent examples of the nature in the area.
Great care has been taken recently by the
California Park Service to restore the 103 acre
setting.
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Asilomar
has been interpreted many ways by English
speaking people. It is a linguistic
contrivance meaning Asylum by the Sea.
Most people call it a Sanctuary, or
Refuge, or Haven by -or, of the sea. They
all mean the same thing. The YWCA created
the term, and it has come to mean one
place. Here.
Asilomar
is at the southern end of Pacific Grove,
next to Pebble Beach.
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“nature
was something to be lived in, not
conquered.”
Julia
Morgan,
Architect
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At
Asilomar, Julia Morgan designed bold Art
Craftsmanship buildings. Her architectural style
was a naturalistic reaction to the trendy
Industrialism movement. Although she later
capitulated all artistic principles with her design
work for the Hearst castle, she did much to advance
a California look to architecture.
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Julia
Morgan and one her designs, Merrill
Hall.
California State Parks
photographs
More about
Morgan
and Asilomar
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Places to Visit
Natural
History Museum Corner
of Forest and Central – Outstanding exhibits of
regional native inhabitants, Huge collection of
shorebirds Seaweed exhibit Relief
map of Monterey Bay Facsimile butterfly tree Native
Plant Garden Wildflower Show in late
April
Open daily
10 – 5 except Monday and Holiday
No charge, donations accepted
Pacific
Grove Art Center 568
Lighthouse Ave
4 very large galleries
Emphasis on local artists
Peninsula
Potters Gallery
2078 Sunset Drive
Place
to Buy Good Stuff and Find Out What’s Going On In
Pacific Grove
Grove
Market
242 Forest Ave. Deli for picnic take out Well
informed staff
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