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Balboa Park is the Central Park of San Diego; so many beautiful spots to visit. The Botanical Garden is probably the most photographed, and rarely disappoints with its postcard-perfect views of the lily pond/reflecting pool in front of it. The first image here is from 1936, about twenty years after it was first built for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. Image #2 is from September 1960:
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The earliest shot that I took myself, from 1986 when I was visiting San Diego on Spring Break:
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If you can’t get to the Park in person, this Faux D© shot from 2012 is the next best thing!
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The inside of the building is just as spectacular:
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The building is one of the largest wooden lath structures in the world featuring more than 2,100 permanent plants, including collections of cycads, ferns, orchids, other tropical plants and palms.
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Final one for today shows the building at its best during the golden hour:
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See more San Diego Balboa Park photos at my main website.
2 comments:
A jewel of a place. I'd make day trips from mid-Orange County with a date carrying bikes so we could bike around and enjoy it all. Then head back for dinner in Laguna Beach before calling it a night. It would be a long day but was very doable in the summer. I think with today's traffic, it may be difficult to repeat what could be done in the early 70s. KS
I love that it really hasn't changed much from that 1936 photo - thank goodness. So many wonderful places being torn down for large, blah buildings!
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