It has been a long hard few days. While Vegas was intense there was a lot of downtime thrown in. Since we left it’s been ALL go. So today was the start of two more relaxed days to get us recharged before attacking San Diego. But our relaxed days are still fun and interesting days that cover as much as most people’s “packed days”
To start with we really took things easy, with a long lie-in, unfortunately so long we missed breakfast! But we got the car packed up and checked out ready to hit the road. San Diego is only 100 or so miles away from Anaheim but we don’t ever seem to go “the way” so our planned route was around 4 hours and 160 miles.
The first stop was Redondo Beach Pier. Then Cruising down the coast taking in some filming locations from one of Kate’s favorite TV Programs from her youth, The OC. We would be taking in Rancho Palos Verdes, Long Beach, Huntington Beach Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, and then down the coast to San Diego, all along the final stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway, probably our favorite Road in the world.
The OC Filming Locations
The first stop was the Redondo Beach Pier at the Southern end of the LA Bay. This was the setting for a large part of the OC and many iconic scenes and moments were filmed on the pier and its immediate Vicinity. Unfortunately, some locations, namely the Bait shop have been demolished but it was still fun for Kate to see what remained of the show’s locations.
In Typical Holywood fashion, most of the houses shot in the show are not in the immediate area of Orange Couty, in fact, they are all over in Malibu. But the other locations are all a little closer, not actually in the OC, but close enough. So after checking out The Bait shop (remains), Sandys Office, The Pier Itself, The Pier Diner, and a few others we headed off to Rancho Palos Verdes a stunning Headland that separates LA from Long Beach.
Unfortunately, the May Gray was very much with us and low cloud and fog obscured the best view from the coast road. But it is still a beautiful place and we enjoyed the drive and the Multi-Million homes that line the hillsides. We stopped off at Wayfarers Chapel. A stunning Glass Church perched in the cliffside nestled in wonderful tropical grounds. The Church has been used for several scenes in the OC including Julie and Caleb’s Wedding and then his subsequent funeral. But even if that means nothing to you this is a truly stunning Church and a must-see if you are in the area.
We are hugely grateful to THE O.C Filming locations website for helping us find all these locations as without the site we would have no idea where these all were so if you are an O.C fan and want to track down all the locations we highly recommend it! From now on we would be checking out the Real OC locations as we made our way down the coast to San Diego.
The Pacific Coast Highway took us down the coast through all the stunning and famous beaches of the Southern West Coast. We didn’t stop much but just enjoyed the drive as we passed through Long Beach, Huntington, Newport, Laguna, Oceanside, and Finally Pacific Beach, Our home for the next few days.
San Diego – Pacific Beach
We love Pacific Beach, it’s really chilled but still lively and has a fun modern vibe. It’s not particularly upscale but that just means good prices and unpretentious vibes. It is also incredibly beautiful.
We had gone mainly on price when choosing our hotel. But we still wanted an oceanfront and reasonably comfortable. We ended up with an oceanview Suite in the Surfer Beach Hotel. The room was fairly dated but had plenty of amenities and although not an oceanfront room, it had a great ocean view from the balcony and a fantastic sunset view over Pacific Beach and Crystal Pier.
By now it was around 5 pm and the Grey clouds had long since passed and become beautiful blue skies and sunshine. However down by the coast, the wind had a wicked pacific coast chill on it. Making sitting outside quite uncomfortable.
We headed to the restaurant below, World famous PB’s, for their daily happy hour. Shrimp Tacos for $2,50 which went down very well seeing as we had kind of forgotten to eat lunch and had missed breakfast! We then just wandered around PB taking it in and grabbing a few drinks at the beachfront bars, while the sunset over the ocean. Before heading to bed for an early night.
Tomorrow would be another easy day, but as we said, our easy is different to most…
Live Blog – Trip Report
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