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Columbia
Located along Broadway and stretching towards the Broadway Pier on San Diego Bay, Columbia is comprised mostly of commercial development with residential condos dotted throughout the neighborhood.
Hotels
The elegant and edgy 259-room
W Hotel incorporates a sunny coastal theme, especially apparent at its popular rooftop
Beach Bar featuring heated sand and cabanas. www.whotels.com
Built in 1924, the historic Armed Services YMCA Building is now
500 West, an affordable, European-style hotel with 260 small and impeccably furnished rooms. www.500westhotel.com
The
Holiday Inn on the Bay, located directly across from San Diego Bay, features 600 rooms with panoramic views of the downtown skyline or of the bay. www.holiday-inn.com/san-onthebay
Restaurants
The Eastern-style chophouse
Rainwater’s on Kettner features fresh seafood, veal, lamb and pork chops, and prime, mid-western and corn-fed aged beef. www.rainwaters.com
Established more than 60 years ago by the Ghio family,
Anthony’s Fish Grotto on the Bay serves fresh seafood cooked with secret family recipes; the full-service restaurant is complemented by its quick-service
Fishette, which offers patio dining. www.gofishanthonys.com
Arts & Culture
In January 2007, the
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) opened a downtown expansion. The ‘baggage building’ of the active Santa Fe Depot, a Nationally Registered Historic Landmark located across the street from the existing MCASD downtown galleries, was fully renovated as gallery space while preserving its Spanish Mission-Colonial Revival-style exterior. Built for the Panama-California Exposition in 1915, the building provides more than 10,500 sq. ft. of new exhibition space for contemporary art. www.mcasd.org
The
USS Midway Museum invites the public to learn about America’s longest-serving aircraft carrier with 35 exhibits and tours exploring its rich 47-year history. Many of the story-telling docents are veterans who served aboard the carrier. www.midway.org
The floating
Maritime Museum of San Diego features one of the finest collections of historic ships in the world, including the
Star of India, the oldest active sailing ship. www.sdmaritime.com
Thirty outdoor
Urban Trees, set along San Diego’s bay front, are life-size sculptures of fantastical trees, each designed and fabricated by local artists. These unique trees are a public art project of the Port of San Diego and are made of steel and glass, tiles and copper, wood and canvas, and inspiration and imagination. www.portofsandiego.org/sandiego_publicart/urbantrees/
Activities
San Diego is the fastest growing
cruise port on the U.S. West Coast and is homeport for Carnival Cruise Lines and Holland America, as well as an embarkation and debarkation port for Celebrity and Royal Caribbean ships. Ships docking in San Diego offer itineraries that include the Mexican Riviera, Hawaiian Islands, Pacific Coast, Central America, and the Panama Canal. www.portofsandiego.org
Hornblower Cruises & Events offers three-hour nightly dinner-dance cruises, Sunday champagne brunch cruises, daily one- and two-hour narrated harbor tours, and seasonal whale watching adventures. www.hornblower.com.
San Diego Harbor Excursion features daily one- and two-hour narrated harbor tours, seasonal whale watching adventures, dinner-dance and Sunday brunch cruises with live entertainment, and excursions to Los Coronados Islands in Mexican waters. www.sdhe.com
Events
Held annually in November, the three-day
San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival, the region’s largest wine and culinary extravaganza, includes events held in various downtown venues and culminates with the
Grand Tasting Event, held at the waterfront Embarcadero Park North. www.worldofwineevents.com
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Dynamic Downtown San Diego
