Monterey (California)

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Monterey Bay Aquarium

“The mission of the Monterey Bay Aquarium is to inspire conservation of the oceans”. This is a very popular sightseeing destination for tourists.

This is at 886 Cannery Row and is open from 10 am to 6 pm. Most hotels will sell tickets.

The convention included an evening party for the first 300 registrants – drinks, nibbles and looking at the fish, sharks and the ...
.../> Restaurants

Monterey and the surrounding area has a huge number of restaurants.

The diner next door to our hotel was closing as we looked for something to eat on Tuesday night. This was probably a good thing, as we ventured across the road and had a delicious meal in a Chinese restaurant for a bill of $18.00 (£10) for two of us. I don’t know the name as I paid cash, but it is opposite the Travelodge on N Fremont.
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In February I visited Monterey, a beautiful town on the central coast of California about 110 miles south of San Francisco which has become a popular tourist resort.

Why Monterey?

This town is 2-3 hours by road from San Francisco, less from the airport or from San Jose and Silicon Valley, and I think about 6 or 7 hours drive from Los Angeles. Because of its location and attractiveness, it has become a popular choice for conventions, and an event was organised there for readers and writers of mystery and crime fiction called Left Coast Crime over a long weekend in February. Hundreds of us descended on the town for a few days. Mikey and I arrived on Tuesday.

Because of the convention (held at the Doubletree Hotel 5 minutes walk from the centre of town from Thursday afternoon to Sunday lunchtime), spending time with a large gang of mystery convention and online reading group friends, and a planned return visit to San Francisco, I didn’t have time to take in as much as I would have liked of the town and the surrounding area. I think though that a visit for 3-7 days would have something to offer almost anyone. You can go out for meals in a wide variety of restaurants, go to the Aquarium, look at the wildlife in the bay – otters, seals, sea lions and pelicans, go out whale watching, learn about the places John Steinbeck wrote several books about and visit the historic town of Carmel. I found it really relaxing.

You can see www.monterey.com for the official tourist sales pitch.

Things to do

Monterey Bay Aquarium

“The mission of the Monterey Bay Aquarium is to inspire conservation of the oceans”. This is a very popular sightseeing destination for tourists.

This is at 886 Cannery Row and is open from 10 am to 6 pm. Most hotels will sell tickets.

The convention included an evening party for the first 300 registrants – drinks, nibbles and looking at the fish, sharks and the rest of the sea life inside huge tanks the height of the multi-storey building. I read lots of material aimed at educating visitors of all ages about the ecological issues and problems facing sea life such as can be seen at the aquarium, for example, over-fishing. There is a fun kids’ activity room where this 34 year old made a wax crayon rubbing picture of a seal. I didn’t get to see them, but there are otters and there are various events scheduled during the day. There is disabled access to the building, and I know my friend Andi was there in her scooter (not quite the same as a wheelchair, but issues about getting into and around buildings are similar).

The Aquarium website is at: www.mbayaq.org

Fisherman’s Wharf

This is about 10 minutes walk from the town centre past the Doubletree Hotel. The shops down here sell typical tourist souvenirs, and there are lots of restaurants including a nice Italian/seafood place overlooking the bay, where Mikey and I had fish and chips with parmesan cheese on the chips for lunch. You can buy tickets for whale-watching boat trips down here as well. Best avoided: I was rather dismayed to see someone with a performing monkey.

The Bay

I recommend just strolling along the shoreline looking at the bay as a priority. We saw several seals and sealions sleeping and playing on the rocks, though sadly no otters.

Cannery Row

The touristy leaflet trades heavily on this street’s associations with John Steinbeck, but really it’s just an area of shops selling clothes, jewellery and souvenirs, and some cafes, and doesn’t look to me to have much to do with the working class community working in the fishing and canning industries in the 1940s.

Shopping

There are some chain stores and the souvenir shops, but we didn’t look beyond Walgreens for a few basics and disposable cameras.

Bay Books is a small independent bookshop very near the Doubletree. I wasn’t impressed by the crime fiction or the general selection, though I might have turned up more bargains among the remainders. They stocked a nice range of bookmarks. We found 4 secondhand bookshops, Book Haven near the bus station and 3 (but only 2 open) on Lighthouse Avenue, a mile or so away and uphill, although there are buses heading up that way. All had a variety of stock but I concentrated on the crime fiction paperbacks, sold at a typical US secondhand rate of half cover price. My credit card bill (ouch!) tells me I spent $79.10 at Book Buyers on Lighthouse - less than £50 for more than 20 paperbacks.

Restaurants

Monterey and the surrounding area has a huge number of restaurants.

The diner next door to our hotel was closing as we looked for something to eat on Tuesday night. This was probably a good thing, as we ventured across the road and had a delicious meal in a Chinese restaurant for a bill of $18.00 (£10) for two of us. I don’t know the name as I paid cash, but it is opposite the Travelodge on N Fremont.

Don’t forget to tip when eating out in the US, though if you are in a large party, a service charge is usually added to the bill anyway, and Mikey and I only went out for two meals on our own in this town.

On Wednesday we had lunch in an Italian/seafood restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf. We both had fish and chips – our chips were served with Parmesan cheese, and our bill was $30 (£18). Dinner in the evening was at Lollapalooza in the town centre, booked in advance for 25 people. In the end they seated 28 of us round a very large table. The menu was fairly varied, American diner type food, pizzas etc. Our share of the bill was about $38 (for two of us). Other places we ate in our stay included Roisins, Peter B’s Brewpub next to the Doubletree and the same restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf I had been to with Mikey (but no Parmesan on my chips the second time). The Brewpub’s service was very slow, but all the other places seemed quite nice, though maybe it was just being in really good company all the time.

Finally, on Sunday night we went to a slightly posher Italian restaurant. I think this was Cibo at www.cibo.com, with delicious food and live jazz. However, I don’t have a credit card receipt or a note of where I spent money that night to confirm the name, as a successful crime author who had just had some good news about money for his future books very generously picked up the bill - all $700 of it for 15 people!

Near Monterey

I was sorry not to get to Carmel, a small town near Monterey famous for its historically preserved streets and enthusiastically marketed to tourists. It is also known for its celebrity mayor Clint Eastwood and for being very dog-friendly, with dogs welcome almost everywhere, although that’s probably only relevant if you live in the US.

Getting there

Monterey has its own airport but the easiest way to get there from the UK and many other places is probably to fly to San Francisco. Our flights booked well in advance at a relatively low season for adults of well over 30 (cheaper fares may be available to students and under 26s) cost £267 including taxes and booking fees. Los Angeles is another option, and it is possible to fly to one city and out of the other for a similar fare (We did this in 2003 and one of my friends did it this year).

Shuttle from San Francisco and San Jose Airports

Shuttle transport from US airports is often an excellent compromise between public transport and a taxi, as you are charged a fixed rate and get driven by someone who will know where the hotels are.

The Monterey Salinas Airbus website address is www.montereyairbus.com and the company can be called from the UK to book on 001 831 373 7777. The fare is $35 one way per person to be dropped off at the bus station in downtown Monterey, payable by credit card or cash. Reservations are recommended by the company but our experience suggests it is not always essential. You don’t part with any money or make a financial commitment when booking, just give them your name. The bus leaves every 90 minutes from the lower level concourse outside the terminal – lots of signs and a friendly information desk will help you find the right place to wait. We got on to an earlier bus than the one we booked, and paid $10 extra to be dropped outside our hotel door. Including a tip (expected by the driver), we were taken door to door for $95 (just over £50) for the two of us.

We also used the shuttle back and took another shuttle to San Francisco for the rest of our holiday, and this is where with a little planning, I might have used the Greyhound and got a taxi from the drop off point in San Francisco to our second hotel.

Local flights
www.Cheapflights.com advertises return flights from San Francisco to Monterey in May 2004 for between $111-$134 plus tax, on Wednesdays. The airport is 3 miles from the centre of town. Booking flights from London in May using Expedia would cost £120 extra to Monterey compared to San Francisco, with longer total journey times. I never really considered this as I knew there were other options and the airbus is affordable and convenient.

Greyhound bus
$18 per person one way from San Francisco to Monterey – one bus takes 4 hours and the other bus takes about 7. We could have boarded the Greyhound and bought tickets from the driver from the same place as the Airbus, but hey, when your suitcase has become rather heavy suddenly and the dollar exchange rate is so nice, and you haven’t organised this in advance….

Amtrak to Salinas
The Coast Starlight stops at Salinas, 17 miles from Monterey, on its daily journeys between Los Angeles and Seattle, along a route which also takes in Oakland near San Francisco. Fares are pretty reasonable, and the trains are very comfortable and it’s all ever so scenic – I would recommend stopping and travelling to Monterey if you fancy an interesting train trip as a part of your holiday, and it might also be a good option if your itinerary includes Los Angeles.

Hiring a car is another option worth considering – I can’t really offer knowledge here as I don’t have a driving licence. Monterey is about two hours drive from San Francisco.

Accommodation

Monterey can be quite an expensive place to stay.

The Doubletree is a popular convention hotel, with a convention centre including purpose built meeting rooms. It is usually a midprice US chain, but as convention rates were $135 and these were snapped up fast, lots of people this time ended up in other hotels. It is between the business/shopping/restaurants district of town and Fisherman’s Wharf – 5 minutes walk from either – and has a number of linked shops, pubs, cafes and bars. It looked pleasant to stay in but if I was in Monterey and wanted to splash out, I would be tempted to try and stay somewhere nearer the bay.

Hotels on Cannery Row will offer a more scenic view than those downtown or in the area of cheap motels Mikey and I stayed in, but they charge accordingly. The Victorian Inn there is under the Best Western Umbrella and its rates are probably similar to those at the Doubletree, and it is near the coastline. For luxury, I was struck from outside by the Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa, but rates of $270-$490 for an “ocean view” make it an “only if Mikey wins the lottery” dream. If I go back to Monterey though, I plan to have a coffee or three in the plaza area. Here’s a link to a picture:

http://woodsidehotels.com/monterey/monte_home.htm

Now, for those like me on a limited budget and/or with other priorities for spending our money on holiday, Monterey has two Travelodges. When I looked this up last September, the website at www.travelodge.com quoted a rate of $90+ for Downtown in February, while the out of town Monterey Fairgrounds branch on N Fremont actually sounded a little bit nicer and quoted a rate of $29 a night plus tax. It is two miles from the centre of town but I thought $60 a night would cover quite a lot of taxi fares and books. In the end we stayed there for $32 a night including tax, spent $3.50 a day getting the bus into town and $8 including a tip on a cab back in the early hours of the morning. That’s less than £20 a night, or less than £25 including extra travel costs. I may write a separate review of this motel.

Getting around

What the travel guides that insist you need a car to get around don’t bother to say is that the Monterey area has a bus service. It suited our needs fine. All buses as well as airport shuttles and Greyhound go from the transit terminal in the centre. We once briefly had to stand. The $1.75 fare covers the price of a transfer, which will be valid if you need a second bus for a period of up to about 90 minutes. Make sure that you have the right change on you.

Internet access in Monterey

Mikey and other friends at the convention were able to get an up to an hour’s free internet access a day at the library – you have to queue or book for this. Otherwise Kinkos, a 24 hour a day photocopying shop with branches all over every US city I have visited, charges per minute at a rate which amounts to about $12 per hour. The bookshop café is one of several venues in town where you can get wireless access with your own laptop. I didn’t get online at all until San Francisco – I survived a week totally offline!

A little background reading

Should you want to read some books set in/near Monterey

John Steinbeck’s novels about Monterey in the days before tourism replaced fishing and canning as the town’s main source of income include Cannery Row and Of Mice and Men. I really want to read them all now.

Janet Dawson, Don’t Turn Your Back on the Ocean – one of a series about a female private investigator called Jeri, who has come from Oakland to visit her mum. It was a wonderful book to be reading while visiting the town, as although it was written a few years ago I kept reading things and thinking, oooh, I’ve seen that. Jeri’s mother is running a restaurant, and her cousin is a fisherman. She gets caught up in investigating the murder of an environmentalist who was concerned about what was happening to local wildlife, so the setting is very much part of the story.

Dianne Day, The Bohemian Murders – another mystery set in historical Carmel, Monterey and Pacific Grove in 1906. The heroine of the book has come to look after a lighthouse.

Elaine Flinn, Dealing in Murder – I haven’t read this book although I did meet the author, but I know several people who have enjoyed it, and it’s about an antiques dealer in nearby Carmel.

I would never have thought of visiting Monterey had it not been for the convention, but would love to return there. Please ask questions should you wish in comments or in my guestbook.
 

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