<p>If your hotel is near the trolley lines, you can travel around without needing to take the car…which eliminates parking problems. </p>
<p>[SDMTS</a> - Trolley Information](<a href=“http://www.sdmts.com/trolley/trolley.asp]SDMTS”>Trolley | San Diego Metropolitan Transit System)</p>
<p>Fashion Valley is high end and boutique type shops (with some typical anchor stores) and I’ve never found much there I’d be willing to pay high prices for. Horton Plaza is interesting architecturally and fun to visit if you must go to a mall but if you drive, make careful note of your parking level and area. It is complicated. Those aren’t homeless people in the garage…just poor souls who never found their cars. </p>
<p>Balboa Park is a lovely day out even if you don’t step foot into one of the museums. Though it existed as a park earlier, the present layout and many of the buildings were created for the 1915 Panama Exposition and the structures were meant to be temporary as they were made of lath and plaster. But the people loved it so much that they refused to let it be demolished. Eventually, of course, all the buildings had to be replaced (except for the Botanical Gardens…the largest lath structure in the world) so it was rebuilt in the same Spanish Renaissance style – a riot of fruit, flowers, and details originally in plaster. The Park has been in constant use since, even being commandeered by the Navy in WWII. Bring a picnic. And don’t be surprised if your kids start acting out the fight scenes from Zorro. It’s a shame nobody has made a remake of that movie in those colonnades. </p>
<p>[Balboa</a> Park | A landscape of Arts and Culture](<a href=“http://www.balboapark.org/]Balboa”>http://www.balboapark.org/)</p>