Palm Springs, USA
I really like Palm Springs. I visited in 2001 on a tour of California and some of the great national parks en route from LA. By pure coincidence we arrived in town on a week-end when there was a Motor Bike rally in town sometime in October which admittedly added a different dimension to the place.
We were lucky to find rooms as most hotels and motels were booked for the rally, which is an annual event called ‘American Heat – Palm Springs Motorcycle and Hot rod weekend’. In the centre of town there were the most amazing customised Harleys and other bikes with fantastic paint jobs to admire (and I am not remotely a bike fan) but they were items of beauty. There seemed to be bands playing on every street corner and some great stalls for picking up fringed leather and suede jackets, waistcoats and trousers, but of course that is not the real Palm Springs. I would definitely go back when the rally is on.
Biker convention aside, there are two main reasons why I liked the place. Firstly, the centre was a very ‘walkable’ place. Us Brits like to be able to park the car and take a walk around the centre, well this Brit does, and a lot of American cities and towns I have visited seem to require a car to get between restaurants and shops. I guess what I am trying to say is that the centre of Palm Springs is quite compact (and there seemed to be a good choice of interesting, reasonably priced restaurants serving, better and more varied than your average American fast food).
The other reason for liking Palm Spring is, being surrounded by dessert, I thought the place has a strange beauty. I remember one particular evening (we were only there a couple of nights) sitting in the hotel Jacuzzi looking with a great backdrop of mountains and palm trees bathed in a really unusual clear light at sunset. The climate was fantastic too
There are some interesting things to do in the locality too. We spent a great morning at the Living Dessert that had some great cacti (there is also the Moorthen Botanical Gardens that we didn’t have time to visit). On our way out of Palm Springs towards the Grand Canyon we went across some of the Salt Lakes and visited the Joshua Tree National Park.
Some of the things we didn’t have time to do are:
– the Air Museum with one of the largest collections of flying WWII airplanes
- the Palm Spring Art Museum
- a tram (or cable car) that takes you to the top of one of the mountains where its 40 degrees cooler than at the bottom!
- Play golf – there are 100 courses to choose from here – but unfortunately my partner doesn’t play (yet)
- Balloon rides
I wish we’d had more time there, and would like to return one day and can understand why people choose to live or retire there.
For an insight into naturist Palm Springs read Terra Cotta Link
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