San Juan Bautista State Historic Park

Buildings around the old Spanish plaza opposite the mission anchor this small historical park. Cavernous stables hint at San Juan Bautista in its 1860s heyday as a stagecoach stop. The 1858 Plaza Hotel, which started life as a single-story adobe building, now houses a little historical museum. Next door to the hotel, the Castro-Breen Adobe once belonged to Mexican general and governor José Castro. In 1848 it was bought by the Breen family, survivors of the Donner Party disaster.