Monterey is a town with a layered past, and the best way to read it is to walk from the old adobe buildings of the first capital of Spanish and Mexican California to the shiny aquarium on the water's edge. Spanish explorers anchored in the bay in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and Monterey served as the capital under Spain, then Mexico, and briefly under the United States. Colton Hall, where California's first constitution was drafted in 1849, still stands in the middle of town.
For much of the twentieth century Monterey meant sardines. The fish were so plentiful that the waterfront street, Cannery Row, was lined with canneries, and John Steinbeck wrote about its workers, drifters and marine biologists. The sardines collapsed in the 1950s, from overfishing and changing ocean conditions, and the factories closed. Today the old cannery buildings hold restaurants and shops, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, opened in 1984 in a former cannery, has turned the local underwater world into a world-famous attraction, with kelp forests and sea otters.
The ride along this stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway is a dream and a nuisance, depending on the day. Highway 1 hugs the coast, with cypress trees clinging to rocks and the sea glittering below, but traffic is heavy at weekends and fog can blanket the road in summer. Mornings are cool and the light improves around midday. The famous 17-Mile Drive loops through Pebble Beach, with a gate fee for vehicles, and Pacific Grove nearby is known for the monarch butterflies that cluster in the trees from about October to February. South of Monterey, the Big Sur coast begins, one of the great roads in America, subject to landslides and closures after winter storms.
Monterey and the neighbouring towns have plenty of fuel, lodging and food, though prices are high. Order clam chowder in a sourdough bowl, a local habit, and look out for sea lions barking on the breakwater. Check for road closures on Highway 1 before heading south.