Page 98 - 2015 Travel Guide to California

DINING at Santana Row, right; San
Jose Museum of Art, below.
With its Mediterranean climate of warm
summers and mild winters, and location
50 miles south of San Francisco and 30
miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, it’s no
wonder that Silicon Valley developed as a
world center for innovation, drawing some
of the best and brightest engineers in the
world to a quiet valley where once only
fruit trees blossomed.
City and Town
San Jose, the county seat of Santa Clara
County, was founded in 1777 and today is
the largest city in Northern California and
10th largest in the nation. Downtown has
INSIDER’S
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TIP
Don’t overlook downtown San
Jose, which has a bustling arts
and culture scene, including on
the first Friday evenings of each
month, when galleries and
museums host receptions and
live music. For a peek into Santa
Clara Valley’s long history (San
Jose was California’s first
incorporated city, in 1850) visit
the PERALTA ADOBE, built in 1797,
the Victorian-era FALLON HOUSE
and the 14-acre HISTORY PARK.
Also downtown is the TECH
MUSEUM and CHILDREN’S
DISCOVERY MUSEUM. Sports
fans might want to nab a ticket,
don teal and black and cheer the
hometown Sharks who take to
the ice at SAP CENTER.
sjdowntown.com
undergone significant revitalization over
the last decade, with historic buildings
such as the California Theatre on the same
block where dozens of software compa-
nies have relocated. The adjacent city of
Santa Clara features historic Mission Santa
Clara de Asis and its lovely grounds on the
campus of Santa Clara University. In the
fall of 2014, the $1.2 billion Levi’s Stadium
opened, the new home of the San Fran-
cisco 49ers NFL team and the venue for the
Super Bowl in 2016.
Planetarium. About 10 percent of San Jose’s
population is Vietnamese, and this ethnic
group has a strong presence particularly in
restaurants along Story Road and at the
Museum of the Boat People in charming
History Park, which also features buildings
representing Portuguese, Chinese, Italian
and other ethnic communities that were
instrumental in the city’s long history.
Heritage and Culture
San Jose offers a big-city cultural scene
with first-rate museums that include the
Tech Museum, where visitors discover
what made Silicon Valley successful, the
Children’s Discovery Museum, the San Jose
Museum of Art and the West Coast’s largest
collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts at
the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and
The Great Outdoors
Wherever you are in Silicon Valley, beau-
tiful open space is not far away. In
downtown San Jose, Guadalupe River Park
is a convenient greenbelt. Nearby Alum
Rock Park offers 720 acres filled with tree-
lined walking paths. Miles of roads in the
Santa Cruz Mountains lead to a diverse col-
lection of county and state parks and open
space preserves in redwood forests ideal
for camping, hiking, mountain biking or a
simple picnic.
96 2015 T R AV E L G U I D E TO C A L I F O R N I A
MARIUSZ S. JURGIELEWICZ; SAN JOSE CVB. OPPOSITE SAN JOSE CVB