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UNITED STATES | Monterey, California Travel Guide
Friday, April 26, 2024
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Pacific Grove
Monarch Butterfly, Pacific Grove, California (cc)
Photo: Kenneth Dwain Harrelson
Pacific Grove
Pacific Grove is a picturesque little coastal town, adjoining to the west of Monterey, that was originally founded in 1875 as a Methodist seaside resort. The town is abundant in brightly colored Victorian homes—quite in contrast to Monterey’s Spanish-style adobes—and also notable as “Butterfly Town, USA,” where millions of Monarch butterflies migrate for the winter, usually arriving in late fall. The orange and black butterflies can be seen in the Butterfly Trees Park in the northwest corner of town, near the intersection of Lighthouse Avenue and Alder Street, hanging like dried leaves from the “butterfly trees.” The town also hosts a Butterfly Parade in October every year, to celebrate the Monarch migration.
Of Pacific Grove’s Victorians it can be said that they can be seen throughout town, but are especially concentrated on Lighthouse and Central avenues and along the waterfront. Among the most notable are the beautifully restored Queen Anne Victorians Gosby House Inn and Maison Bergerac, both located adjacent to one another on Lighthouse Avenue, dating from 1887 and 1892, respectively; the Pryor House on Ocean View Boulevard, dating from 1908 and once the home of Pacific Grove mayor John Pryor; the Green Gables, a Swiss Gothic, built in 1888 and now a bed and breakfast inn, located at the corner of Ocean View Boulevard and Fifth Street; and The Centrella, the most splendid of all, dating from 1889 and now a B & B, situated on Central Avenue. There are, in fact, more than 180 homes here that were built prior to 1890.
Among other places of interest in Pacific Grove are the oceanfront Lover’s Point Park, just off Ocean View Boulevard; Point Pinos Reserve, where there is a lighthouse dating from 1855, believed to be the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the West Coast; the Pacific Grove Art Center on Lighthouse Avenue; and the Natural History Museum on Central Avenue, which has displays of more than 400 species of birds from Monterey County, as well as exhibits depicting the animal, vegetable and mineral life of the Monterey Peninsula area, and an excellent relief map of Monterey Bay that illustrates in 3D the great chasm in the bay, plunging, in just a few miles, from some 300 feet to over 8,400 feet!
Last updated February 15, 2011
Posted in United States | Monterey
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