California: program and itinerary

Arrival around 6 pm. Quick stroll around the hotel.

Visit of the city, walking or using the tramway.

We went for a bicycle ride around San francisco (Golden gate bridge...). It was great.
Of course we deliberatly avoided the famous sloping streets !

We rented a car, bound for Sacramento via wine trails... interesting day !

Lake tahoe area is beautiful and totally contrasts with San Francisco and Sacramento which are not that far.
There are a lot of nice walks around the lake.

Again, we drove through very nice landscapes mainly sequoias forests. When we reached Yosemite valley, there were a deep fog and it was only 5°C ! But it didn't prevent us from having a long walk in the woods.

When we woke up, the sun had come back and we really enjoyed the beautiful landscapes of the valley, its waterfalls, its forests and its... bears ! We actually saw lots of them. Besides they cause a lot of damage to the cars, looking for food...
In the afternoon, we had difficulties to drive to death valley area because of the snow ! As the short cut road was closed, we had to go round the moutain range to finally join Lone pine.

Early departure to the mythical Death valley... wonderful ! It was around 45°C but the landscapes are so amazing that it's really worth taking the heat.
We arrived in Las vegas just before night where we slept in Luxor hotel. All hotels located on the strip (main boulevard) are huge but not very expensive. As a matter of fact, the owners hope you'll waste a lot of money in casinos in order to compensate...and obviously it works !

We left Las Vegas only using secondary roads which lead us to twenty-nine palms, a small town where the two only things to do where visiting the cactus garden and have a bath in the swimming pool of the hotel !

From 29 palms to Palm springs we went through Mojave desert. The temperature was so hot that we didn't want to drive too much...so we stayed in Palm springs which is a nice place.

We didn't really visit San diego. We went to the african wild animals reserve and it was great.

We spent the morning in San diego then we drove to L.A.
We spent the afternoon on a beach of Malibu...

Venice beach and dowtown L.A were our two main occupations of the day.

We spent all day at Universal studios. Honnestly, it was really fun.

Back to Paris...