Monterey – The Millionaire’s Peninsula

After Santa Cruz, the next leg of this epic road-trip became quite a busy schedule in an attempt to soak up all of scenic Highway 1 over the space of 5-days. It’s something you could easily spend a whole holiday doing if you needed to be thorough.

Carmel by the sea, The Riviera

Great architecture in Carmel

Carmel is a fairytale beach town with a beautiful wide sandy bay beach and a shoreline dotted with incredible houses. The architecture here surpasses Hollywood and Beverly Hills many times. There is everything, from the pseudo Mexican (drug dealer) ranch houses to the super modern glass angular houses and chocolate box mock-Swiss chalets – and naturally they are all right next to each other as this is who gives a… California. The main street is lined with designer boutiques (possibly the only village with a Bottega Veneta in the world?) and the whole place has a real St Tropez feel to it, but is not nearly as busy and developed.

Doggie hour

We dropped by at “dog walking time” around 6pm. This is a highly sociable passtime in California where chic ladies chihuahuas rub noses (to ass usually) with Arnie’s pedigree green eyed silver pitbull. It’s designer doggie land – don’t forget the poop scoop though ($84 fine), no – actually do forget it as Carmel City provides them for free at frequent intervals along the dog track. Fun place.

Pebble Beach and The 17-Mile Drive

Pebble Beach Resort club house

17 Mile Drive is a private road (official site) running from Carmel to Pacific Grove near Monterrey. It costs $9.25 to enter the road subject to permission at the gate. It contains 3 world class golf courses such as the sublime Pebble Beach Resort (Green fee $425).

First stop Pebble Beach

Pebble Beach links

Beautiful, super mega pimp country club and golf courses by the ocean. In Great Britain one would not be allowed in such a club without hefty membership charges (hello Hurlingham) – but this is the land of opportunity and anyone who can afford this and looks the part can come in, so we did.

Pebble Beach Golf club house

Gilly was quite lustful about the golf course and I even wanted to play on it, not being a golfer and all. I did establish that they also had some fine tennis courts, ouch! Dragged away kicking and screaming.

Before we got too settled / lustful we hopped back in the shed and drove around to a nice sunset point and on to The Lone Cypress, a tree on a rock which happens to be pretty and also the logo of Pebble Beach Club – hence its fame.

The Lone Cypress, much photographed - here's my effort

Finally as the last embers of the sunset dipped over the horizon, we reached Pebble Beach itself, so-called as people stack the pebbles into little satanic mounds along the beach. It looks quite charming in the sunset light but I have no idea why they bother, I had a lot of fun knocking them down.

Pebble stacks along the 17-Mile Drive

The houses in this area are all highly secluded and private so I have no idea what they look like but I’m sure they’re quite ridiculous.

And finally, Monterrey

I didn’t take a single picture in this town, it is an unremarkable geriatric town of boredom and John Steinbeck fame of course. It has the famous Cannery Row, wow – a load of old sardine tinning factories turned into a tourist trap. One feature here worthy of brief mention are the venetian bridges that link the factories across the road. They look quite scenic when adorned with neon at night.

The Monterey Jazz festival was also on but I really couldn’t tell. It didn’t seem to liven the place up that much.

Yawn, take a look at the official website if you care.

Tags: 17 mile drive, california, country club, golf, lone cypress, millionnaires, monterey jazz, monterrey, pacific, pebble beach