Little Italy - A week in San Diego, day 1 - part 01

We landed in San Diego late on Friday, and all we had time to do was go grocery shopping... And enjoy some palm trees brightly lit by the moon and streetlights... But we already knew this vacation was going to be good...

 

 So, the next morning, we woke up early and had breakfast surrounded by blooming hibiscuses and plumerias. Well... that's not something you expect to find at the end of October unless you're heading to some tropical paradise for a vacation ;)

  

What's the best way to get to know a new city when your first day there happens to be a Saturday morning? Obviously, you visit a farmers market somewhere in the old part of town. So we jumped into the car and headed out to find one...

And... it didn't take long to park in Little Italy and start walking between local vendors selling everything from fruits and veggies to locally made souvenirs... 

We had a feeling that the entire city had joined us there. People filled the streets and small plazas, enjoying the mild weather and warm morning.

Well... Little Italy Mercato looked just like any other farmers market... and we enjoyed both - being part of the friendly crowd and looking around at local stores and old buildings, like this beautiful Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church, built in the early 1920s and located in the heart of the Little Italy neighborhood.

Even though we'd already had breakfast, it was impossible to pass by a stand where you could get fresh seafood... So we had a plate of grilled oysters before continuing down the street...

The next building that caught our attention was Doma - a residential and retail complex built in 2003.

Well done, San Diego! I would have expected something like that to be designed and built some 80 years earlier ;)

We walked down the street and turned toward the Embarcadero, passing modern buildings made entirely of glass, steel and concrete...

We didn't plan to spend the whole day in the city that Saturday, so we walked past the San Diego County Administration Center, completed in 1938 by the federal Works Progress Administration.

Commonly called the Jewel of the Bay, the building features some innovative construction techniques designed to protect it against earthquakes. Built on newly dredged tidelands, the complex showcased a novel design for the 1930s and was considered to be at the cutting edge of engineering at the time.

Well, this was the point where we turned around, walked back up the street where the Mercato was still in full swing, and headed back to our car... We had more places to see that day...

To be continued...

Photos taken on October 24. 2026.