Santa Cruz is a seaside town 100km south of San Francisco, at the north end of Monterey Bay. It was a very charming town until it was mostly destroyed by the Loma Prieta earhquake in 1989. For many years, downtown was just huge metal tents. Today it’s back to what it was, it has been carefully restored instead of just being redeveloped with ugly modern construction.
Back when I lived in Palo Alto close to San Francisco, I often rode my bicycle up to Skyline boulevard which follows the ridge of the coastal mountains, and down to Santa Cruz through charming villages like Boulder in the middle of the forest. I am happy that Santa Cruz is again how I knew it back then!
