 |
Listed below are a pair of Amtrak trips. They're a bit pricey, compared to what's listed on the previous pages; you'll have to splurge for Pacific Surfliner tickets from Union Station, plus admission costs. But TransitPeople has visited both of these destinations, and our participants simply raved about them. The Surfliners are new, and look it, and this unashamedly biased writer considers them much more fun than an airplane ride. One, the scenery's better; two, your ears don't pop!
- Mission San Juan Capistrano
- This was the seventh California mission built by father Junipero Serra over two hundred years ago. Even the most preoccupied kid can figure out that this was a complete, self-sustaining community, back in the days when one couldn't run out to the nearest 7-11 if the bottled water supply in the fridge needed restocking. There wasn't a 7-11; there wasn't bottled water; there wasn't a fridge! But there were soldiers' barracks and a tallow vat, and visitors can see them today. The mission is five minutes on foot from the San Juan Capistrano train station; if you're a fast walker, make it three.
- Ventura
- It's not any one attraction that makes this a stand-out; it's the combination of attractions near the Ventura train station. There's the Mission San Buenaventura ... tiny compared to Mission San Juan Capistrano, but still worth a half hour. Across the street is the Ventura County Museum of Art, with its gallery of Chumash Indian artifacts and historical George Stuart figurines. Then there's the Albinger Archaeological Museum, also nearby, the A.J. Comstock Fire Museum, the Ortega Adobe, and, if the kids start to get cranky, the great blue Pacific Ocean, on the other side of the train station.
|
