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UNITED STATES | Monterey, California Travel Guide
Saturday, November 30, 2024
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Big Sur
One of the world's most scenic coastal drives, Big Sur, California
Big Sur
The Big Sur Coast is a spectacular, 90-mile stretch of coastline that extends from the southern tip of Carmel Bay (a little over 2 miles south of Carmel) to the tiny coastal settlements of Big Sur, Lucia, Gorda, and on to San Simeon. Indeed, Big Sur—which derives its name from “El Grande Sur,” Spanish for “Big South”—offers in it one of the world’s most scenic coastal drives, with dramatic cliffs overhanging sandy beaches and small, rocky coves, and the rugged Santa Lucia Mountains plunging directly into the sea. The highway here—Highway 1, built in 1937 and designated California’s first scenic route—clings precariously to the coastline much of the way, dipping and climbing and weaving madly around the coastal hills, treating the motorist-sightseer to endless sweeping vistas of the ocean.
The Big Sur Coastal Drive
The Big Sur drive is in fact quite splendid from the moment it sets out, passing by wilderness reserves and state parks, secluded beaches and coves, small, wooded canyons and valleys, and numerous vista-point turnouts all along the highway, most with superb, breathtaking views. There are also a handful of spectacular, single-span concrete bridge along the highway, including Rocky Creek Bridge and Bixby Bridge, the latter with a 320-foot span, perched 260 feet above the creek bed.
For campers and hikers there is no dearth of opportunities here, at the 159,000-acre Ventana Wilderness, the 2,154- acre Andrew Molera State Park, the 810-acre Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park, and the 1,700-acre Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, which also has in it the scenic Saddle Rock Fall, the only waterfalls on the California coast that plunge directly into the sea.
Also along the way are the Big Sur Village, situated in the Big Sur Valley; the exclusive Ventana Resort and Ventana Country Inn, set on a wooded hill overlooking the ocean; Nepenthe a landmark restaurant and bar-cum-gift shop that was originally built in 1944 as the honeymoon cottage of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth; Deetjun’s Big Sur Inn, a Norwegian country-style inn; the Henry Miller Memorial Library, devoted to the works of the one-time Big Sur resident writer and artist; and the Coast Gallery, housed in two large redwood water tanks and exhibiting original watercolors of Henry Miller.
On the highway, too, near the southern end of the Big Sur coast, are the small communities of Lucia, Pacific Valley, and Gorda, all with minimal facilities.
Last updated December 26, 2010
Posted in United States | Monterey
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