Downtown by the Water Front

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Geo: 32.7157, -117.162

The area around the Convention Centre is all very new, well laid-out and convenient. We stayed at the Manchester Grand Hyatt,where Hamish's conference was being held, and the view from the room was definitely grand. We had a partial view of San Diego Bay. We have stayed in many hotels with a sea view, but not one which included views of warships! Across the bay is Coronado Island, half of which is taken up by the naval base.

The hotel was huge and opulent but in slightly kitsch style with chocolate-boxy murals that were commissioned by the square yard rather than on artistic merit.

In front of the hotel is the Seaport Village, a collection of restaurants and shops housed in quaint little buildings trying hard to give the impression that you were in a "village". There were some nice restaurants with good sea views. It gets pretty busy at the weekends and I'm sure the shops do rather well from all the convention goers.

Further up the Embarcadero is the enormous USS Midway. Commissioned in 1945 it was at the time the largest ship in the world. It was named after the Pacific Battle and was the first ship that was too big to go through the Suez Canal. That must have been a bit embarrassing..... "Er, sorry Captain, I think we'll have to go the long way round..."!

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Photos

The Manchester Grand Hyatt
We were on the 18th floor in the Harbour Tower.

City view from the bedroom
The alarms at level cross of the trolley were very noisy and frequent. But we got used to them pretty soon.

Shop in Seaport Village
They sold a vast range of chilli sauces... :-)

Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard
Full of modern buildings and palm trees. Along the pavements are plagues with his sayings.

The pool in the hotel
Interesting shape....

From the Top of The Hyatt
Sunset seen from the 40th floor

The hotels and Convention Centre
Seen from the Marina Park.

Comments

[Food addict]

And no food pictures?!