Travel: Monterey, California

Published on Tuesday 8 March 2011 12:12

The contrast seemed surreal in the glare of the Californian sunshine. Tourists were strolling by in colourful shorts and T-shirts as ranks of men, smartly kitted out in dark suits and hats, set out in small fishing boats.

We were among the former group, though neither as flamboyantly dressed nor as tanned as the rest, and we were the only ones transfixed by the sight of the fishermen.

Their industry was documented in a series of photographs which lined our hotel hallway, telling the story of a time when Monterey was a bustling place, with the atmosphere of a frontier town and a seafood bounty so plentiful, this was the sardine capital of the world.

Men came to fish, women to gut the fish and a few offered some extra services. It was a hard life and one which inspired John Steinbeck to immortalise the hard-working and often hard-drinking characters in Cannery Row.

It was Steinbeck who first brought us to Monterey almost a decade ago. We'd made the pilgrimage to Cannery Row and, after walking in his footsteps, we drank in what we could of the atmosphere, happily stumbling upon a cafe that claimed to be the original La Ida.

We reckoned that the woman who served us was surely one of Flora Wood's finest. She had the look of someone who'd perhaps enjoyed the odd jar in her time and we enjoyed the fare she dispensed along with colourful banter.

Like every pilgrim, we'd cherished our holy grail. But clearly not everyone saw it the same way. Ten years on and that atmospheric old place is gone and the whole row has been considerably cleaned up.

Modern Monterey is a place that Steinbeck would hardly recognise: it is fragrant, well-manicured and the living seems, if not exactly easy, certainly comfortable.

If you like a little more urban grit with your literature, the sprawl of his home town of Salinas is just a few miles inland. It's home to the National Steinbeck Center, which features all of the work of its Nobel Prize-winning son, and interactive displays which allow visitors to get to grips with The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden and Cannery Row.

Back on the coast, the stink and the grating noise of the canneries are long gone but reminders of the immortals are still there. Steinbeck's friend Ed Ricketts provided inspiration for Doc in Sweet Thursday. A reconstruction of Ricketts' lab stands at 800 Cannery Row as a reminder of his life and work, and nearby is a statue which commemorates his death on the railroad.

You can still see the workings of the Old Hoveden Cannery, but it's largely tourism and the wine trade that draw people here now. Visitors come in their droves: for the literary and cinematic connections and related tours; to play golf on some of the most dramatic courses on the continent; to hike, fish, kayak or go hang gliding.

We came by car in just under three hours from San Francisco, down the scenic Highway One. The roads are so much better than ours, but the effort of manoeuvring turns on the "wrong" side meant we were more than happy to hand over our keys to the valet when we drove in to the Monterey Plaza and to forget about the car for a couple of days. Americans love to drive but here in Monterey they seem happy to stroll around, enjoy the sunshine and take in the sights.

We didn't have to walk too far for our first snapshot. Lunching on the hotel's restaurant deck, we had grandstand views of the sea otters playing in the bay.

While we made heroic inroads into very generous portions, the staff gave us some inside info on how best to see the area. So, we hired bikes next day to cycle along 17-mile Drive, which takes you through Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach.

It's a pleasant route, with plenty of tree-lined shady areas to keep off the afternoon sun but also vantage points to stop, explore and wonder at the wealth which created so many mega-mansions.

The marvellous light and temperate climate keep on drawing you outdoors, but the results of the county's many microclimates enticed us inside.

There are 40,000 acres with perfect conditions for creating wines from pinot noir to grenache. Most of the literature explains how to get to the vineyards by car but as neither of us was prepared to be designated driver nor to swig and spit, we strolled along the Row to the Scheid Wine Lounge.

For less than a tenner you can sample four types of wine from a list of eight. The friendly and knowledgable staff even produced a delicious chardonnay during a conversation about the much-maligned grape.

This is the boutique end of the wine trade, small and perfectly formed and the sort of subtle tastes that rarely travel from their own continent.

These vineyards select only a small percentage of the harvest for their own wines and sell the rest of the grapes to the big names whose mass-produced wines give California a bad name.

We did buy some to bring home but the combination of a chilled bottle in the hand, a beautiful sunset and a balcony over the Pacific meant that the last of it went down not too long after the final rays of sunlight.

The next day, with surprisingly clear heads, we visited the town's famous aquarium. "You like the otters, you'll love the aquarium", our waiter at the hotel had told us. So we went, along with a few of the millions who visit every year. The aquarium day pass allows you to nip in and out as often as you like, plus there are plenty of sunny decks and viewpoints within the complex so you can easily lose yourself in here for many hours and you need at least three to do the place justice.

Even on a busy day, with local school groups learning about the bay's marine sanctuary, there's no feeling of missing out.

You get a look beneath the waves that you couldn't otherwise see without a wetsuit. There are towering stacks of seaweed, jellyfish and sharks.

The touch tank is pretty tame in comparison, but there is also a wonderful perspex tunnel where the waves crash over your head allowing you to appreciate the power of the water without getting wet.

You'll never look at an anchovy in the same way again once you've seen them swarming overhead in a vast circular tank, or at sardines, once you've seen them in a multi-coloured feeding frenzy.

The centre's resident female otters babysit any orphaned wild pups, brought in from the bay. Feeding time for the otters offers one of the aquarium's daily highlights.

They dive and play, swoop after frozen treats and then apparently hide them in their pelts for later when they float on their backs and enjoy their snacks.

They eat about a quarter of their own body weight every day. We felt as if we were doing much the same but weren't quite managing to look quite so sleek and muscular on it.

As we learned along with the schoolchildren, otters have no need for blubber with their dense pelts, so there is no flab on them.

We did intend to address our own excess with a visit to the gym and spa back at the hotel.

A relaxing massage put paid to any workout but worked wonders on the lingering jetlag, a few days earlier. We had headed to the rooftop spa just as dawn was breaking.

After warming ourselves by the fire, we braved the slight morning mist to get into the spa bath.

As the rising sun painted the landscape pink and burned away the remaining strands of mist, we watched wild sea otters playing on the wakes of the few fishing boats heading out to sea and spotted three pelicans sweeping back in from a fishing trip of their own.

They were so close we heard the swoosh of their wings and looked up just in time to see them framed by the rising sun; another picture of Monterey that will stay with us forever.

THE FACTS

Return flights from Heathrow to San Francisco with British Airways start from 562. Inland view double rooms at the Monterey Plaza Hotel from 135. Visit www.monterey plazahotel.com For more on Monterey see www.seemonterey.com

Visit www.holidays.scotsman.com for more great holidays

This article was first published in The Scotsman, 19 March, 2011