A Visit to Presidio Park San Diego

Presidio Park San Diego is more a monument to San Diego’s historic Presidio than an actual Presidio.  That’s because the building in the photo below is actually a museum and not the original Presidio.  More details about that later…

Okay, so here’s the truth:  these photos are already more than a year old!  Yes, that’s right – I confess!  Charlie and I went on an excursion to Presidio Park San Diego more than a year ago and it has taken me more than a year to get this post on this blog!!!

So, what’s the deal, you are probably asking?  Why did it take me more than a year to write this post about Presidio Park San Diego?  It’s because I’m a busy girl!  Busy cooking all the time and posting those recipes on this blog!

Seriously, I took over 300 photos that day and as always happens when I do a major photo shoot, I download the photos and think, “wow, that’s a lot of photos to weed through!  I’ll do it tomorrow.”  And, of course, “tomorrow” never comes and suddenly more than a year has passed!

In the end, I weeded those 300 photos down to 54 and I’m sharing my favorite 54 photos of Presidio Park San Diego with you today!

I lived in San Diego County for more than 35 years, but have only been to Presidio Park San Diego 3 times.  There is so much to do and see in and around San Diego County that sometimes you don’t go back to the same place for many years.  So, one beautiful day in September, we ventured out to check it out!

The landmark building in Presidio Park San Diego is actually The Junipero Serra Museum, built in 1928-1929 by George Marston, a wealthy San Diegan, as a gift to the citizens of San Diego.  It honors the legacy of Father Junipero Serra, the founder of the Mission system in California.

The actual “Presidio”, founded in May 1769, no longer exists, falling into disarray after years as a military fort and finally abandoned by 1835.  But, it was the first permanent settlement by Europeans on the Pacific Coast and today, is an archaeological site.

In addition to a military fort, Presidio Hill was the first home to the Mission San Diego de Acala, founded by Father Junipero Serra in July 1769.  Father Serra moved the mission to its present location in 1774, leading to the confusion to visitors that The Presidio (actually The Junipero Serra Museum) and Mission San Diego de Acala are one in the same!

To get to Presidio Park San Diego, which is on top of a mountain (probably, really classified as a hill, since it’s known as Presidio Hill), you drive up a narrow 2-lane road, in much need of repair. Charlie, my husband, is handicapped and uses a mobility scooter.  Here’s a look at the scooter attached to the back of our car:

See Charlie sitting inside, waiting?  Well, there’s a story to that:

Winding our way up the 2-lane road to Presidio Park San Diego, everything was going smoothly until, suddenly, he hit a pothole in the road.  The scooter went flying off the back of the car, crashing hard into the pavement!  Completely surprised, because this had never happened before, Charlie drove to the nearest parking lot (he didn’t want to stop in the middle of a winding, curving, 2-lane road) as I’m screaming at him, “we can’t just leave the scooter in the middle of the road!”  Once he parked, I got out of the car and ran back to the scooter laying sideways in the road, a twisted heap of unknown damage.

The good news is that no one was behind us, following us up this hilly road, so the scooter didn’t cause an accident for someone else!  The bad news is that the scooter’s base was cracked and the seat torn AND that I had to lift it to right it into its correct position!

Now I’m not a strong person, so with much huffing and puffing (that thing is darn heavy!), I was able to get it back up and check it out to make sure it still worked.  Miraculously, it did (kudos to the scooter manufacturer), so I drove it back to the parking lot, where Charlie sat parked.

“It’s working, Charlie.  Let’s go check out the museum,” I pronounce to Charlie, who was still sitting in the car.

“No, I’ll wait here while you check it out first.  I don’t see a handicapped entrance.”

And right he was.  Surprisingly, The Junipero Serra Museum in Presidio Park San Diego has no handicap entrance and is not handicap accessible!

Instead, they have lots and lots of stairs…

Old stairs made from bricks placed in cement sideways with cracks and weather damage making them a bit of a hurdle for people even without handicaps.  For handicapped people, climbing up these steps to see the museum in Presidio Park San Diego is near impossible.

Steps lead from one level to the next…

Up and around corners…

Into the portico…

Steep steps up to hidden areas…

I think these are the same steps as the one above, just a different angle!  I can’t remember…after all, it’s been more than a year!

Steps leading down…or is that up?

And, steps to the parking lot.

So, in the end, I loaded Charlie’s scooter back onto the lift on the back of his car and he waited inside (see him waving?) while I went to explore without him.  Luckily, he brought a book to read; Charlie’s a voracious reader!

This is the front entrance to the Serra Museum.  I decided not to pay the small fee to visit the museum that day, since Charlie couldn’t enjoy it with me.  I’ll save it for a visit when I go again with someone else.  But, I did walk around the grounds, exploring various areas as I made my way back to the parking lot and to Charlie waiting for me in the car.

The long covered portico is lovely…

with terracotta pots filled with succulents.  The wooden piece leaning against the wall inside the portico is wine press – a gift to San Diego in 1969 for San Diego’s Bicentennial from the City of Mallorca, Spain, which was Father Junipero Serra’s birthplace.

This is a door leading into the Museum.  It’s locked, by the way…

Close-up of this beautiful old door…

Close-up of this beautiful old key hole on this old door…

Another view from inside the portico…see the docent inside the window?  She was very kind and distressed when I asked if there were future plans in the works for making The Junipero Serra Museum handicapped accessible.  The answer:  to her knowledge, no.

A Moorish arched window inside the portico with a view of San Diego…

A rectangular window in the portico…

A porthole window in the portico…

Interstate 8 as viewed looking (north) down from the museum’s outdoor area…

Another view of Interstate 8 looking east from the outdoor walkway that surrounds the museum…

The view northeast…

Cyclists on the road below the museum, looking west…

Looking up – a balcony…

Looking up to a weather vane on the dome of the tower.  The bear is California’s state symbol.

The view looking west to Sea World…

The view looking west to the Mission Bay Bridge…

The view looking southwest to the Sports Arena…

Turning my sights back on the museum, I took this photo of roof lines converging.

I love this one because of the different colors of the roofing tiles.

And this one, because it looks like Greece…blue sky, white building…

And this window…love the depth of color in the old glass in this window!

And, this little, barred window…

Another view, looking straight up at the dome, which you can’t see from this angle!

Done with enjoying the museum’s architecture, I head to the gardens beyond the parking lot. This is a California El Camino Real Mission Bell, which marks the way up and down California from Mission to Mission.  The idea of marking the “Kings Road” was the brain child of Mrs. A.S.C. Forbes in 1906 and there are probably close to 1,000 of them now.

Along the way, bougainvillea bloomed here and there…

This larger than life bronze statue of a Mexican Vaquero on his horse was a gift to San Diego in 1970 from Mexico’s President Gustavo Diaz-Ordaz.  Lunging through the brush, this majestic statue has a place of honor in Presidio Park.

Here’s a close-up taken with a telephoto lens.  Alongside the road, it isn’t one you can easily walk up to (on purpose, I suppose).

Rising above a clearing, The Padre Cross is a testament to the original Presidio.  Made in 1913 of tiles from the Presidio’s ruins, it is a popular site for small weddings.

A close-up, looking up to the sky…

This is a Royal Robe bush, also known as a Blue Potato Bush.  They were blooming everywhere with bees hovering gathering nectar.  See the giant blurry bee in the background?

In a grove of trees is a wonderful bronze statue called The Padre by Arthur Putnam.  This beautiful statue was given to the San Diego Historical Society by the descendants of E.W. Scripps.

E. W. Scripps, a famous newspaper tycoon, commissioned Arthur Putnam to erect a total of five statues for the Scripps’ Miramar estate.  This one, The Padre, was completed in 1908.

I love this photo of his face…

And, his hands…

My father was a sculptor in his retirement years (he retired at 43 – he was an Air Force pilot).  He did a few figurative sculptures (mainly female nudes) and said that the hands were always the most difficult.  So, I think of that conversation with my late father when I see another sculptor’s work on hands.

Palm trees reach for the sky overhead…

And, another magnificent Arthur Putnam sculpture, The Indian, has a place of honor alongside the road leading to The Junipero Serra Museum.  The Indian was completed in 1904.  The 3rd one in this collection of works commissioned by E.W. Scripps is called The Ploughman (completed 1910) and now has a permanent home at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla.

Sadly, in 1911, Arthur Putnam suffered a brain tumor and though he survived and lived until 1930, he never completed a significant sculpture again.

The Serra Museum at the top of Presidio Park San Diego with The Padre Cross in the foreground, a lovely place to visit if you are a hiker {grin}!  Who knew the sky could be so many shades of blue, all in one day?

Tootles,

 

Related Posts:

(other posts about San Diego)

• 42 Things to do in San Diego
• Lake Poway Recreation Area
• By the Sea at Oceanside Harbor