Laguna Beach, California

Dana Point has free parking in the harbor area and on its streets. There is a pay machine at Salt Creek Beach where one inputs the space number and the time wanted and after paying receives a ticket receipt to display in the car. 

Many of the other coastal cities are not as generous. San Clemente has a similar machine near its pier parking, but also meters. Laguna Beach is especially unfriendly in providing free or low-cost parking. The street parking uses meters requiring quarters and near Heisler Park and downtown, the cost is $2.50 per hour. There is a 2 hour limit as well, though how they enforce that I don't know. 

After using up 10 quarters for Heisler, I didn't have enough for street parking in the retail district. Instead we parked in a lot at $10 per day, with no hourly option, just a flat $10 no matter how long you stayed in the lot. This is actually not too bad a deal if you are staying 4 hours or longer. Unfortunately for us, we only stayed about 2 hours: time to eat lunch at Slapfish, walk near the beach and along the retail streets, and then finish up with ice cream in a shop near to the parking lot. If we had discovered this lot before going to Heisler Park, we could have avoided the meter and would have done better cost-wise. One of the lots is on Ocean Street and the other is on the street directly east of the beach and near a bank. 

Heisler Park is not to be missed. Lovely views, lots of benches, and if you are adventuresome, tidal pools to explore.

To the south of the park is a swimming/sunbathing beach. No beachcombing allowed, however.

People were enjoying the warm sunny day.

Next to the public changing/restrooms and below stairs leading to a hotel, was this interesting mural and landscaping.

We ate at Slapfish which was part of a small eatery mall with a shared patio and up the block from the beach. Good fish tacos.

Some of the stores on the main north/south street surprised me. A nursery, especially. Given the difficulty of parking, a place where heavy items would need to be loaded into vehicles seemed impractical. 

A woodworker's shop was intriguing but it wasn't open. Pretty cutting boards in the windows though.

Another shop on the main highway going thru town:

Many of the professional offices had interesting planters. I really liked the lights at the one below.

We stopped in several art galleries, passed by more cafes and jewelry stores, and peeked in a hardware/housewares store. Lots of people eating on patios. This bird perched on a café sculpture, was on the lookout for food left or dropped by diners.

Now that I know what to expect, I would probably plan a visit to Laguna Beach differently than what we experienced. It is an expensive place to dine and shop and park.

This is the last of my California trip blogs. I will close with some photos of a walk I took thru a development across from our condos and on the trail west of our place. The Niguel Coast development was ungated and not too hilly so would be a good place to bike as well. We were blessed to have such nice weather for outdoors activities. Though most of the architecture had a California look, some seemed to be more like New England houses. At least there was pretty good variety.

 Houses viewed from the trail that edged the golf course and also went east facing the hills:

It was wonderful to bask in sunshine in my native state.