Monterey - the seals love it!

The Californian coastal town (and sardine capital of the western world) of Monterey is an attractive place to visit, despite the weather being a slight disappointment for our stopover during a cruise onboard Celebrity Century.

Drizzling rain stopped us from exploring too much, but a stroll along the waterfront from the jetty (our landing point by tender) was quite enjoyable.

An added bonus was the frolics by the friendly seals basking on rocky outcrops and other perches in the water.

After our waterfront stroll we headed into the downtown area and walked up and down the main street. Not a lot of activity there on the day either, but I'm sure Monterey cocmes alive on more pleasant days.

Enjoy the video above and please check-out the many other videos on my youtuble channel at youtube.com/renzwiers

San Francisco city sights

A trip on the local 'Hop on, Hop off' tour bus services is a must...it's the perfect way to get your initial bearings in most cities. San Francisco is no different.

The Big Bus Tour collected us from the cruise ship wharf, just up from the renowned tourist hotspot Pier 39 and showed us most of the city sights in just a couple of hours. We did the full round trip including a return crossing on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Unfortunately the weather changed and the rain started shortly before arriving at the bridge so it became impossible to film or photograph along the way...the wind blew a gale and all passengers on the top deck retreated downstairs for shelter.

Apart from this slight misfortune, the remaining trip was well worth the money.

The video in this post shows some of the city scenes captured from the tour bus as well as Pier 39 and its surrounds, just a short walk from our berthed cruise ship, Celebrity Century.

The next video, to be posted in the near future will highlight our next cruise stop, Monterey.

Santa Barbara, California

Home to many movie stars and other celebrities, beautiful Santa Barbara is on the Californian coast a short drive north of Los Angeles.

I have visited this district a number of times in the past, but most recently it was a daytime cruise stop on our Celebrity Century eight night Pacific Coastal adventure.

Time ashore was limited so we spent most of our visit strolling along State Street and onto Stearns Wharf.

A great facility downtown and along the foreshore is the electric trolley mini-bus which will transport you up and down lengthy State Street and to the wharf and beachfront at very low cost.

Santa Barbara is easy on the eye with a dominant Spanish influence on architecture, as the video shows.

It's a colourful town close to some great wineries and a huge number of quality restaurants and other eateries dotted throughout.

The pastures of Haute Savoie

In this week's edition of ATW Travelradio Australia, Euro correspondent Frances Beasley roams the pastures of Haute Savoie (France). Ann Abernethy (from the US edition of ATW) chats with Max Hartshorne, editor of Gonomad.com, about Sacramento, the capital of California. Aussie contributor John Crook visits the town of Childers in the South Burnett region of Queensland and calls in at a bird park, a popular macadamia ice cream stall, a reptile park and a winery amongst other places. Click this link to listen.

VIDEO: Day tripping in San Francisco

I filmed this video about six years ago whilst on a visit to various places in California. It starts with a ride on the renowned cable trolley from downtown San Francisco to the waterfront where we boarded a cruise boat to glide us past Alcatraz and underneath the majestic Golden Gate bridge. Right at the end of the movie we see a skilled artist in Chinatown at work.