| A trip that I recommend to everybody? What I have made from July 30 to August 13 th 2003 through California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. 2 unforgettable weeks! More than 5100 Kms in the earths of the wild West, crossing every type of landscape and climate: sea, desert, mountain, city, from -80 to over 3000 meters altitude, from 13° to over 50° of temperature.
From months I studied a new trip on the western coast, that I had already visited with a friend in 2000. The choice is fallen on the Tour "Fly & Drive" of the Turisanda denominated "The Parks" since he/she offered us to an inferior price a turn similar to what I had planned me. I have asked to the agency to add to the packet, of thirteen days, a night in more to Saint Monica since there had already been and I had found her very beautiful.
We have departed to the dawn, rather before, to the 3:30 from the house in Milan of my fiancée to comfortably be at 5:00 o'clock to Malpensa, after having left the autos in a parking lot around the airport that I had booked days before. A po of attended to the airport for the hostess of the Turisanda that has to deliver us the aerial tickets and finally. he departs. Brief flight up to Frankfurt and then eccoci on the airplane that, in 12 endless hours, it brings us to Los Angeles.
After a long tail to the immigration, we succeed in recovering the baggages and we go there to the society of car rental Hertz, where it waits us for the car that we have booked. My suggestion is to book, if he travels in four as us, a "minivan." Certainly coast a po, especially if, as we have done us, all the insurances are undersigned, but convenience is enormous. Be unthinkable to stow 4 people with all the valiges in an auto of category "premium" gives for 5 people! Unfortunately the Hertz in the minivans doesn't foresee the "neverlost", a profit navigator's system satellitare and so I was gone from Italy a palmare Ipaq 3970 + spar GPS expresses with caricabatteria 12V + program navigator "Destinator" (site). On this small computerino I had provveduto to load all the hotels, you address him profits, the maps and as news that of great utility are revealed for the whole trip. I warmly recommend you to bring you a navigator, you will save as time to look for the hotels, the places to visit, the restaurants.
Before it covers, just withdrawn the auto and overcome the initial difficulty with the new commands, has been the beach and the dock in Manhattan Beach (photo). And here the first surprise... it was cold. Despite we were to end August and there pits the sun, even if a veiled po, the wind made the temperature until too much fresh. After having dined in a "deli" (an intersection among a self service and a rosticceria), we have gone to the hotel, the Howard Johnson Airport, near to the airport as can be realized by the name, a typical hotel of passage (luckily the other hotels that we will meet in the rest of the trip will be well above this). Here is delivered us the containing envelope the vouchers of the other hotels, some map and a guide of motto of the run of the tour. We notice so that some hotel is varied by the initial list, but at least the category the same one remains.
To the morning, at 8:00 o'clock ready and operational, despite the fused schedule! We decide to have breakfast in a delicious maintops house that prepares some good cakes; only problem. every slice (enormous) that the holder brings us, would be enough for sfamare all and four for the whole day. We begin the day in the most exclusive zone of Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive (photo). The whole district is curatissimo and the shops they are to the clientele's height constituted to a large extent from the actors and from the actresses that they live in the proximities. Later we go to the Universal Studios (sito),(foto) but, as we had already decided, we prefer to save the 45 $of entry to devote us to other, seen the little time to our disposition. Then we make a turn in her "Universal City" (photo), colored commercial center beside the Studioses, and we decide to direct us toward Long Beach (photo). We pass next to the Queen Mary (photo), by now turned into an afloat hotel, and we come to Huntington Beach (sito)(foto), one of the most beautiful beaches in the California. We arrive too late unfortunately to succeed to see one of the tappes of the championship USA of surf, that is concluded hardly. Sin, the punishment would have been worth it indeed! We satisfy there therefore to stroll about among the fornitissimis negotiates of sporting attire and the places frequented by surfer and beautiful girls. For the streets, we notice indeed some samples of auto eccentric (photo), that will have the opportunity of meeting more times during the trip.
In the late afternoon start there toward Palm Springs, known I center thermal, more frequented in the winter season, seen the torrid heat that reigns here sovereign, after all are in the middle of the desert! Fortunately l ' hotel (Best Western Inn) is furnished of swimming pool and the bath of midnight, even if water has a temperature of 30°, it is relaxing indeed. In this town we see the first one of the so many local animals that we will meet during the trip, a colored hummingbird, and we assist to one of the famous storms in the desert, that covers the roads of Palm Springs of a river of water in few minutes, but that luckily he concludes within a hour, leaving again us to the usual torrid temperatures. We stop there to the first great supermarket that we find and we purchase an useful refrigerator that, completed of two thermal tiles, it will allow us to drink fresh drinks to over 50° in the middle of the desert. Shortly after we enter the Joshua Tree National Park, so called by the name of the famous tree of the desert (photo) to which an album of the U2s is devoted also. To the entry of the park we purchase the National Park Pass (site), that for alone 50 $to auto, it allows the free entry in all the national parks (site) of USA for one year. The heat is notable, but toward midday we succeed in finding a platform equipped in semiombra to stop us to eat our sandwiches; sinned for the flies that don't give us truce. Luckily also meet there around more interesting animals as the squirrels (photo), that will practically see again during the whole trip, from the desert, to the mountains of 3000 meters and even on the beach or in the city on the threads of the light, so much that will almost end up detesting them! But also the simpaticissimo mouse kangaroo, that to our attempts to approach us to photograph him/it, he/she answers with some rapid leaps that do him/it resemble really to a marsupial, and finally the coyote, animal these parti.Ils' symbol trip proceeds toward Phoenix where, before starting us to the hotel, we do in time to visit Rawhide (site), a false village western, with saloon, sheriff, shops and music country. The hotel, Scottsdake Pima Inn, is very nice and comforting and is found next to Scottsdale. The morning later, breakfast in a local style years 60, that it brings us to the atmospheres of Happy Days.
It covers her following it brings us toward the Grand Canyon, to signal the deviation toward Sedona, very characteristic town in an environment they climb on. We leave in the first afternoon the suitcases near the hotel (Best Western Squire Inn) situated a po before the entry of the park and we start there toward the west road (West Rim) of the Grand Canyon. We are to more than 2000 meters, in the middle of a sharp pain forest and the show that it introduces us when we reach the Vistor Centre it is really indescribable (photo). The zone around the Canyon is perfectly a horizontal highland where the Colorado, in thousand of years, has dug very deep jagged furrows. Also the about ten photo that we have gone off the idea of the show that introduces him to our eyes don't absolutely make (photo). With a free pulmino we reach the extreme western point of the road (Hermits Rest), where we wait for the sunset that makes the throats of the canyon striped of various tones of a very intense red (photo). To notice that all the parks "rocky" they are very more beautiful to the dawn and the sunset that in the daytime, when the strong sun and the light haze make the colors very slimmer. He/she dines in a steak house (specialized restaurant in grigliate of meat) next to the hotel, sinned only that to the open face a po cools (we are to over 2000 meters altitude).
The morning later we depart for visiting the East side (East Rim) of the Grand Canyon; here we stop there along numerous "point of view" to admire the grandeur of the canyon. Left the Grand Canyon, to reach the Monument Valley, passes through desolate territories for around 170 miles. The only ones "towns" I am Tuba City, Red Lake and Kayenta, constituted by a general store, a distributor and 3 or 4 huts. Here in fact are we in the beautiful mean of a reserve Navajo and the occasions to let us try from the purchase of some Indian jewel they don't miss, but will they be Indian indeed? In the late afternoon we finally reach the Monument Valley. We feel there on the set of a film western while we are crossing on our auto the road excavated that ago the turn of the 3 famous woodpeckers (Three Sisters) immortalized in "red Shades" and in a lot of other films on the Far West. (photo) around us an immense desert zone of rocks interrupted every now and then only by the outline of a hogan, the traditional wood hut of the Indians, used mainly today for the breeding of animals. Ended the turn, we return in the point of the Visitor Centre in time to see a spectacular sunset that the it accents the red colors of the ground and the mountains. (photo). Unfortunately they wait us for 200 Kms in the desert, to the most complete dark, before reaching Page, where in the Best Western Arizonian we arrive tired.
The day later, to reach the Bryce Canyon Park we do more than 60 excavated street kms (Cottonwood Rd) through very suggestive desert territories (foto)(foto). The Bryce Canyon is admired after all very well arriving until of the only road that brings really above to a spectacular mink of the jagged underlying rocks. (photo) we are over the 2000 meters of altitude and the work to walk he feels. Going out of the Bryce Canyon and directing us toward Cedar City overcome with the auto the 3000 meters!!! We spend the night to the Ramada Inn of St George. The morning we return back later up to the entry north of the Zyon Park, where we make a brief excursion afoot that it brings us on a peak from which the green valley is dominated. We decide lasciar to lose the south entry of the park and we start there toward Las Vegas, diverting on the left through the warm Valley of Fire (photo) we reach the Hover Dam, the dike that creates the Lake Mead. The heat is really unbearable, seem really to be in an oven with a phon aimed in face!
We arrive in the to Las Vegas late afternoon (our hotel is the Best Western Mardi Gras) where they wait us for two nights in the most unbelievable city that can be seen. We do in auto a turn for the trafficatissimo "strip" admiring to opened mouth the show of the lights and the colors of the various hotel/casinòs. We easily find parking lot nell hotel Alladin (photo), where to see the Arabic village with the gallery of shops is absolutely. The morning later we prefer to spend a couple of hours in swimming pool to refresh us before rituffarci inside the casinos: Luxor (photo), Bally's, Excalibur (photo), Paris (photo), Mandalay Bay, Montecarlo (photo), Venetian (photo), MGM (photo), Bellagio (photo) and the New York (photo). To eat in Las Vegas to low price is simple. all it takes is slipping in a casino and to find a sideboard that, to around 10 $, it allows you to literally eat what you want. Naturally we surrender machines to the charm of the slots, present in every angle of Las Vegas and the whole Nevada (even in the supermarkets!). After some attempt we succeed (to the "New York") to realize the winning combination of three "7" (photo) that it makes us win 1000 times the mail (unfortunately only 25c), that add to some preceding win it makes us go out winning for more than 300 $. abundantly spent in mega suppers in the following days.
Left to the morning I lend Las Vegas, it waits us for one of the longest and fatiguing tappes of the trip: the crossing of the Death Valley (photo). We discover in what it seemed us an unbearable heat up to that moment, it was not anything in comparison to the 50° that they waited us. The punishment is worth of however to make the numerous deviations, often in roads excavated for admiring the numerous ones "point of view" of the valley: Zabriskie Point, Dantes View, Devils Sweater Course (photo), Badwater (foto)(il stung lower than the western hemisphere, with 86 meters under the level of the sea), the Artist Drive (photo), a road that unties him between colored rocks and l '" oasis" of Furnace Creek. Crossed the long valley, stop there to Mammoth Lakes (Sierra Nevada Inn), town very frequented in winter by the skiers where, with surprised the temperature lowers up to 13°!!! The morning later we pass the Tioga Pass (open only in the summer) and we enter the Yosemite Park. After so much desert we finally find us in a splendid valley with streams (photo), you fall (photo), lakes (photo), and also some enormous redwood. Unfortunately the park is an overcrowded po but we succeeds in turning well enough it in auto granting afoot also us some stroll. While we are starting there toward the exit of the park, a black orsetto it crosses us the road. We dine with a good beefsteak to Mariposa, where we stop there to sleep to the Comfort Inn.
Later the day starts there toward San Francisco (gallery) passing through a panorama of orchards and vineyards and plants eoliche. We decide to enter city from north through the Golden Gate (photo), a journey unfortunately to payment. San Francisco is a city built on about ten hills and the roads they are very steep and amusing to be crossed (photo). Is go suffered in the hotel (Holiday Inn Civic Center) to place the baggages and we direct there toward the district of Haigh-Asbury (foto)(foto), where the hippy movement was born. Absolutely to see they are the numerous shops of the district, furnished in style hippy/anni 60-70 (photo) with objects and very particular souvenirs. A "must" it is the purchase of the color shirt psychedelic in the shop proper to the intersection between the roads of Haigh and Asbury (photo). To the evening we dine to base of good fish in a restaurant of the Pier 39 (site), famous dock in wood with as shops. At the end of the dock there am hundreds of spread out sea lions to the sun, a show to absolutely be seen!(photo) The day later we go to visit Alcatraz, the famous penitentiary in the middle of the bay (photo). For a trip on this island it is worthwhile to book in advance near the Blue and Gold Fleet (site) before departing from Italy, because it is very difficult to find place in certain periods of the year, (in some cases to have the tickets it needs to attend a week!) Returned by Alcatraz, we go to eat in one of the so many ristorantinis to the open one that you/they are found in the piazzetta to around 2-300 meters on the left of the Pier 39. Good crabs, squids and other fish can hardly be eaten fished and cooked to the vapor on the moment. The afternoon we pass around it for the city, Golden Gate, Coit Tower (foto)(bellissima the sight but long the tail to arrive us), Lombard Street (the most tortuous road to the world, absolutely to do in auto).
Later the morning waits us for one of the longest tappes (500 kms), the trip, along the coast, from San Francisco to Saint Maria. We make the whole coastal road stopping us about ten times in the "point of view" to precipice on the wild coast (photo), very beautiful but also very windy. Memorable it is also, after Monterey, her "17 Mile Drive" (to payment 8 $) that it crosses a promontory full of stupendous villas until to reach the coast, where a reserve natural rich in birds is found (photo) and a sweater field where they quietly pasture the bucks. To the exit we stop there to Carmel, rich town that has had as I verify Clint Eastwood (site), where we turn in the numerous ones (and expensive) galleries of art. From here it begins the wildest part of the Big Sur, around 250 Kms of completely desert coast (photo). Remember to do you the full one before entering this zone, since the only distributor, to around half road, makes to almost pay the gasoline the double one than it normally costs. Have you ever seen some cows on the beach? Bè, along the Big Sur can also happen you this! To the evening he/she dines in a restaurant to Morrò Bay with stupendous sight on the bay and finally in bed to Saint Maria (Historic Santa Maria Inn).
To the morning we again direct there along the coast and we arrive to Santa Barbara, very beautiful with the usual dock in wood to be visited (photo). We cross Malibù and we reach Saint Monica, one of the most beautiful Californian cities. After some difficulties to find a place for the auto, we spend the whole afternoon in the negoziettis of the pedestrian island. We sleep to the Best Western Gateway Hotel, night extra-tour that we had already booked in advance. To the morning we still do in time to make a jump to Hollywood, to the Chinese Theater, where on the floor there are the imprints of the greatest actors and to make a turn along her "walk of hunger" to admire the stars that you/they remember the greatest actors and actresses (photo). Latest edition covers it is Venice (photo), town very beautiful call "Venice" because of the numerous channels (photo). Unfortunately in the first afternoon, after having quickly delivered the auto, it waits us for the airplane that, street Frankfurt, brings us in Italy. |
