Driving around Orange County

It was september when I was here last time and now I’m driving again around OC. After a12 hour never-ending flight I landed in Los Angeles yesterday at 1 pm. Even if LA is non my favorite airport when I got out and started driving to Irvine I felt comfortable. I’ve been here several times having the opportunity to visit several places. Enough to have some reference points that  make me feel home. I will be here for one week, with several meetings scheduled and an important event on wednesday and thursday. But in the meanwhile I will even have time to look around and live for a while the OC life.

I started today visiting the Mission in San Juan Capistrano (1776). I never had been there before.  San Juan Capistrano is a really nice place, that gives you the feeling of the old Mexico, and the Mission is a real historic landmark, one of those that is not so easy to find here around. Maybe it’s because, living in Italy, we are used to history, old palaces and buildings far older that the oldest building in US, but normally when I visit an historical place in US it’s not do easy to consider it much more historical than old. The Mission is different. You feel some ancient feeling walking around the porches, visiting the “industrial” area, entering the old and destroyed stone church and looking that the bells wall. You feel in some way the flavor of a past that is really history.

I couldn’t drive around OC without stopping and spending a couple of hours in Laguna Beach. I don’t now really why, but I love that place. I love the city beach, the art shops and mostly looking at the ocean from the viewpoint close to the “Las Brisas” restaurant. Laguna is no Sardinia, but it’s so lovely too that I never get tired of it.