Built for the 1915-1916 Panama-California Expo, this 1,200-acre city park is recognized all over the world. Celebrating California's Hispanic roots with ornate Spanish-style architecture, the park is home to edifices like the California Building
...Built for the 1915-1916 Panama-California Expo, this 1,200-acre city park is recognized all over the world. Celebrating California's Hispanic roots with ornate Spanish-style architecture, the park is home to edifices like the California Building whose polychrome tile roof was designed after a Spanish Colonial Church. The Balboa Park buildings represent some of the first structures in the United States to be designed in the elaborately decorative and ornate style of the Spanish.
Culture abounds at this Park with a rotating calendar of exhibitions, plays, concerts, and classes. Balboa Park's Old Globe Theatre hosts as many as 14 performances a year on its three stages, making it San Diego's largest arts organization. The city's broad ethnic diversity is echoed in the Park's many institutions including the Centro Cultural de la Raza, the World Beat Center, the Museum of Man, the Japanese Friendship Garden, and the Mingei Museum of International Folk Art.
Located just minutes from downtown San Diego, approximately 14 million visitors make their way to Balboa Park every year to enjoy its famous zoo, 15 museums, antique carousel, Tony award winning theater, beautiful botanical gardens, pipe organ pavilion and miniature-scale train. For sports enthusiasts, Morley Field includes a bicycle track, a swimming pool, a disc golf course, and USTA awarded tennis courts. The Park also offers three leash-free dog parks, lawn bowling, a golf course, hiking trails and numerous picnic areas. With so many options, Balboa Park is sure to have more than enough to keep you busy!
The Park is open daily from 9:30 am - 4:30 pm with extended hours in the summer. Admission to the park and gardens is free, but admission to institutions and museums may vary depending upon museum and membership.
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