GAZING due north from Tijuana, 14 shimmering, hazy miles across the ocean, you spy in the distance San Diego, a gleam in the light. Even from here you can see the jet-trails, the crisscross of streamers above the airport.
You catch the big jets, like hyphens of silver, surreally floating between the high-rises, dropping fast to the downtown runways. Touch and go.
There is wealth in abundance in San Diego. Blessed with sunshine, a stunning location (almost 80 m
iles of beaches) and one of the greatest parks in the world, California's second-largest city has the kind of ease to its everyday life that combines civic pride with a welcome to strangers, a genuine openness – whether to tourists or Mexican fly-by-nights looking for work and a wad of dollars to kick-start their dreams.
We arrive from the north, zig-zagging the wild serrated edge of Pacific Coast Highway. The drive of a lifetime, all the way from the giant redwoods of north California, through San Francisco, clinging tenaciously to the ocean, catching afar the prosperous high-rises of the city. This place feels lucky.
Gold was discovered here in 1869, kicking off a population explosion. The railroad followed, chasing the money. Then came the spendthrifts, the shoot-outs, the gun law and a rash of sin that saw the burgeoning of brothels and sleazy saloons. After that came the hangover years – the 1930s depression. People left. The city slumped.
It was saved, unexpectedly – and ironically, some might say – by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. "It's a funny old world," says no-nonsense Ernie, aVietnam veteran I meet on the deck of the mammoth USS Midway, once the pride of America's navy and now a tourist attraction and patriotic symbol. "It's the perfect harbour. Designed by God, licked into service by Uncle Sam. They stationed the navy here, pasted the enemy, and the place ain't looked back since." As Ernie speaks, we are passed by a file of Japanese tourists. Ernie grins. He gets the joke.
We see the huge naval base as we scoot across the long bridge to Coronado, making our way to one of the greatest (but not most expensive) hotels in the world. It's a slice of architectural Disneyland – the Hotel del Coronado – sprinkled with stardust, known to every serious movie buff on the planet as the location for the beach scenes in the classic Some Like It Hot, and known to locals as simply the Del.
At the check-in desk, we bask in the three sweetest words every traveller yearns for – "You've been upgraded." Minutes later, I stand on the balcony of our ocean-view deluxe suite, fantasising that I'm staying next door to Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, within a whiff of the movie's bombshell, ditzy Marilyn Monroe, who may be about to wiggle towards the sunbed right in front of me. The hotel is as chic now as the day it was built, the beach as golden, the ocean as pristine, its breakers rolling across the white sands.
So what is there to do in this southern Californian paradise? We opt to begin with a trolley ride, the all-in-one introduction to San Diego, threading together its key attractions. We enjoy the spectacular downtown panorama as the bus winds across the bridge above the naval docks, offering views of the bays to the north, the golden peninsula tapering southwards, and beyond it all the vast ocean crisscrossed by yachts and a billowing schooner. Our driver salutes the naval flotilla of vessels docked below as he veers from the bridge towards Balboa Park.
You could spend three days at the park, a destination in itself. Its biggest attraction is the zoo (at least half a day's touring, or longer if you join the queue to see the pandas). We waste half an hour on the overhead cable-car ride (great for tree-top shots of the city but not for a view of the beasts, which are camouflaged way below).
Balboa Park is also home to 15 museums, devoted to everything from railways, aircraft and space to photography, art and man. Given its range of places to eat, the enchanting gardens and entertainment on tap, all the place lacks is its own hotel to save you ever having to leave.
But then you would miss San Diego's glitzy shopping and the Del, not to mention its grit, its sleazy, roistering past. So we stop in the Gaslamp Quarter, where sailors once, long ago, rushed ashore to "exchange pleasantries", as our guide puts it, "with ladies of the night".
We drift around town, enjoying a drink at the open-air Altitude Sky Bar, on K Street, kick our heels at the Seaport Village, studded with bijou souvenir shops and crafts. Then we reboard the trolley, heading back to the Del for dinner.
Next morning, we cannot agree on how to spend the day. So I have an idea. "You be Marilyn, I'll be Tony," I venture. "We've got the suite, the ocean view, the perfect beach. All I need is the sailor suit and a yacht."
She forks her fingers through her hair and gives me the look. "You don't have a yacht?" She looks disappointed. Shaking her head, she subtly adjusts her shades. "Nobody's perfect."
Fact file Virgin Atlantic (0870 380 2007, www.virginatlantic.com) flies from Heathrow to Los Angeles from £360 return.
A double room at Hotel del Coronado, (00 1 800 468 3533, www.hoteldel.com) costs from £159 a night.
An all-day sightseeing ticket costs £16 from Old Town Trolley Tours (00 1 619 298 8687, www.trolleytours.com).
