Waterfront sights in USA
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Pier
St Pete's tourist pier is a long, wide, aging landmark. It culminates in an inverted, primary-colored pyramid that looks like a 3D Mondrian painting and houses an uninspired tourist trap. There are shops, a tiny aquarium, a bait house with rod rentals, dolphin cruises, bike rentals, several gulf-view restaurants (the best is an outpost of Tampa's Columbia Restaurant), and brown pelicans awaiting fishy handouts. Plans are afoot to tear it down and start from scratch; expect changes.
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Perkins Cove
Perkins Cove is a picturesque inlet dotted with sailboats and lobstering boats. A narrow pedestrian bridge spans the harbor and leads to a handful of attractive restaurants, art galleries and boutiques.
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Santa Monica Pier
Kids love the venerable Santa Monica Pier, where diversions include a quaint carousel, a solar-powered Ferris wheel and tiny aquarium with touch tanks. There's free two-hour parking in public garages on 2nd and 4th Sts ($3 after 6pm).
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Commercial Wharves
The lifeblood of this seaside town flows from the pair of commercial wharves at its very center. Most of the action is on the east-side MacMillan Wharf, the jumping-off point for whale-watching cruises and the site of the Expedition Whydah Pirate Museum. The west wharf, Fisherman's Wharf, sees most of the local commerce and is the place to catch fishermen unloading their catch. The town's main public parking lot sits between the two.
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Waterfront
A five-minute walk from the center of town, the Waterfront is refreshingly unencumbered by the souvenir stands and chain stores that crowd the more developed waterfronts of most American cities. Instead, it's a low-key promenade with a 7.5 mile bike path, a pier for boat trips on Lake Champlain, the ECHO aquarium (p000) and the Discovery Landing, a modern observatory with a small café that's great for watching the sun set over the lake.
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Redondo Beach Pier
Depending on your point of view, Redondo Beach is either depressingly grotty or refreshingly unglitzy. The action hub is the Redondo Beach Pier , which arches from the bottom of Torrance Blvd all the way to King Harbor. The latter is an aesthetically challenged 1960s multilevel concrete construction but has a cool beer bar (Naja's Place) and Quality Seafood, a fish and seafood shop where you can have your purchase cooked up, then sit at a picnic table to eat it.
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Maine Maritime Museum
The museum, south of the ironworks on the western bank of the Kennebec River, preserves the Kennebec’s long shipbuilding tradition. In summer, the 19th-century Percy & Small Shipyard here still has boatwrights hard at work building wooden craft. The Maritime History Building contains paintings, models and hands-on exhibits that tell the tale of the last 400 years of seafaring. In the apprentice shop of the Percy & Small Shipyard, boat builders restore and construct wooden boats using traditional tools and methods. In summer, the museum offers a variety of boat trip and tours along Kennebec Waterway, to the lighthouse or trolley tours through the Bath Iron Works.
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Wharves
Bannister's and Bowen's Wharves typify Newport's transformation from working city-by-the-sea to a tourist destination. While much of the experience of downtown and Thames St involves shopping and eating within a cobblestone context, it is at Bowen's Wharf that you'll feel commercialism most tangibly.
Fishing boats and pleasure vessels sit around the periphery of fudge shops, places selling sculpture made of shells, and lots of clothing stores (some local, some chain) all housed in an outdoor mall on a former wharf meant to blend into the old city by virtue of the liberal use of grey shingles. The shear number of people hanging out here lends it the air of excitement.…
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The Boardwalk
Atlantic City's famous Boardwalk was the first in the world, built in 1870 by local business owners who wanted to cut down on sand being tracked into hotel lobbies by guests returning from the beach. Alexander Boardman came up with the idea, and the long stretch of planks became known as Boardman's Walk - later shortened to 'Boardwalk'.
The Boardwalk is still the lifeline of the city and the path that leads to all doors. It runs along an 8mi (13km) stretch of beach where visitors sunbathe, picnic and swim.
If you're interested in losing some serious currency or just want to check out the grand gambling halls, there are several along the the Boardwalk. Showboat Casino…
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Hetch Hetchy
In the park's northwestern corner, Hetch Hetchy (which is Miwok for 'place of tall grass') gets the least amount of traffic yet sports waterfalls and granite cliffs that rival its famous counterparts in Yosemite Valley. The main difference is that Hetch Hetchy Valley is now filled with water, following a long political and environmental battle in the early 20th century. It's a lovely, quiet spot and well worth the 40-mile drive from Yosemite Valley, especially if you're tired of the avalanche of humanity rolling through that area.
The 8-mile long Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, its placid surface reflecting clouds and cliffs, stretches behind O'Shaughnessy Dam, site of a parking…
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Homer Spit
- Homer, USA
- Sights › Waterfront
This long needle of land - a 4½-mile sand bar stretching into Kachemak Bay - is viewed by some folks as the most fun place in Alaska. Others wish another earthquake would come along and sink the thing. The Spit throbs all summer with tourist masses in unimaginable density, gobbling fish-and-chips, quaffing specialty coffees, getting chair massages, buying alpaca sweaters, arranging bear-watching trips, watching theatrical performances, and - oh yeah - going fishing in search of 300lb halibut.
The hub of all this activity is the small-boat harbor, one of the best facilities in Southcentral Alaska and home to more than 700 boats. Close by is the Seafarer's Memorial,…
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Trans-Alaska Pipeline Terminal
Across the inlet from town, Valdez' ever-pumping heart once welcomed visitors, but since September 11, 2001, stricter security protocols have closed it to the public. From the end of Dayville Rd you can still get a peek at the facility, including the storage tanks holding nine million barrels of oil apiece. But heed the dire warnings: plenty of septuagenarian RVers have been pulled over and interrogated for getting too close.
Those truly interested in the terminal can learn more about it at Prince William Sound Community College, which for a fee offers a pipeline exhibit and thrice-daily 'video tour', featuring great photography and a narrative that amounts to little…
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Stearns Wharf
The southern end of State St gives way to Stearns Wharf , a rough wooden pier with a few snack and souvenir shops. Built in 1872 by John Peck Stearn, it's the oldest continuously operating wharf on the West Coast. During the 1940s it was owned by Jimmy Cagney and his two brothers. Partly destroyed by a 1998 fire, it has now been restored. Parking is available for around US$2 per hour, with the first 90 minutes free with validation.
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Berkeley Marina
At the west end of University Ave is the Berkeley Marina, frequented by squawking seagulls, silent types fishing from the pier, unleashed dogs and, especially on windy weekends, lots of colorful kites. Construction of the marina began in 1936, though the pier has much older origins. It was originally built in the 1870s, then replaced by a 3 mile-long ferry pier in 1920 (its length was dictated by the extreme shallowness of the bay). Part of the original pier is now rebuilt, affording visitors sweeping bay views.
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Ocean Front Walk
Between the South Mission Jetty and Pacific Beach Point stretch 3 miles of pure, unadulterated SoCal beach scene. Ocean Front Walk bristles with joggers, in-line skaters and cyclists - the perfect place for scantily clad pretty people-watching. Back from the beach, Mission Blvd consists of block after block of surf shops, burger joints and beer busts. Down at the Mission Beach end, beach bums pool their resources to rent small houses and apartments for the summer season. The surf is a beach break, good for beginners, bodyboarders and bodysurfers.
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Venice Boardwalk
Venice Boardwalk is officially known as Ocean Front Walk. It’s a freak show, a human zoo and a wacky carnival, but as far as LA experiences go, it’s a must. This is where to get your hair braided, your karma corrected or your back massaged qi gong–style. Encounters with budding Schwarzeneggers, hoop dreamers, a Speedo-clad snake charmer and a roller-skating Sikh minstrel are pretty much guaranteed, especially on hot summer days. The Sunday-afternoon drum circle draws hundreds of revelers for tribal playing and spontaneous dancing. If the noise doesn’t show you the way there, just follow your nose towards whiffs of ‘wacky tabaccy.’ Alas, the boardwalk vibe gets a bit…
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