Read. Write. Listen. Create.

We spent the weekend in Placerville where we used the travel van for the first time and we decided to stop in Old Town Sacramento for lunch. I’ve been to Sacramento throughout the years but had never stopped to see the Old Town waterfront.

Here’s some history with some help from the good old Wikipedia: “The city of Sacramento grew up in the mid-nineteenth century as a development from Sutter’s Fort. However, the Fort was some distance from the Sacramento River, which was the main means of transportation to the coast of California, and the area that would become the modern city developed along the waterfront.”

Architecture is one of my favorite things about historic cities and there wasn’t a shortage of beautiful design. “The architecture of Old Town Sacramento exhibits observable characteristics similar to that of San Juan (Puerto Rico), Havana (Cuba), Tampico (Mexico), Madrid (Spain).”

About one third of the total area is made up of the State Historic Park. “Virtually all the buildings in this area date back to the 19th century, the most notable dating back to the period immediately after the disastrous fire of 1852, and show a reasonable approximation of their original appearance, though they have required varying degrees of reconstruction to restore them to that state.”

With a historic setting comes old fashioned roads and walking surfaces. For those of us who use other forms of getting around, those surfaces are not ideal. While the roads were paved, there were some areas where the roads were created to resemble old brick and the areas around the shopping and dining areas were wooden planks. Rolling over these uneven surfaces are very bumpy and cause my back to be in need of a deep tissue massage and chiropractor! I think they were going for the aesthetic and not keeping in mind that not everyone travels by foot. At least I don’t have to worry about tripping! But I will give them credit, they made ramps at every corner: the first time I’d ever seen that in a historic city!