Sumptuous Balboa Park contains one of the largest groups of museums in the US, scattered either side and to the south of El Prado, the road that bisects the park. Yet its greatest charms are its trees, gardens, statues, traffic-free promenades and Spanish Colonial-style buildings. Within easy reach of downtown by buses #7, #16 or #25, the park is large but fairly easy to get around on foot - if you tire, there's a free tram. The $30 Balboa Park Passport , which allows one-time admission to all twelve of the park's museums and its Japanese garden (though not the zoo), is available from the visitors information center (daily 9am-4pm; tel 619/239-0512), inside the beautifully reconstructed House of Hospitality. Most of the museums are closed on Mondays, and most are free on varying Tuesdays.

Minor works by Rembrandt and El Greco and a stirring collection of Russian icons make the stifling formality of the Timkin Museum of Art (Tues-Sat 10am-4.30pm, Sun 1.30-4.30pm; closed Sept; free; gort.ucsd.edu /sj/timken) worth enduring. The San Diego Museum of Art (Tues-Sun 10am-4.30pm; $8; ) has few individually striking items in its permanent collection, save for a small selection of 17th-century Dutch works by Hals and Rembrandt, but it's the main venue for touring shows and offers some exquisitely crafted pieces from China and Japan. Outside, don't miss the free Sculpture Court and Garden , with formidable works by Henry Moore and Alexander Calder. The Museum of Man (daily 10am-4.30pm; $6; ), which straddles El Prado, veers from banal crafts demonstrations to excellent Native American displays, artifacts, folklore and physical remains.

The child-oriented Reuben H. Fleet Science Center (Mon & Tues 9.30am-6.30pm, Wed-Sun 9.30am-9pm; science center $6.50, with theater or simulator $9, all three $11; ), close to the Park Boulevard end of El Prado, is notable mainly for its Space Theater's huge IMAX screen and virtual reality simulator, which take you on stomach-churning trips into outer and inner space. Across the plaza, the Natural History Museum (daily 9.30am-4.30pm; $6; ) has a great collection of fossils and pulls no punches in its coverage of threatened species. Just behind, in the Spanish Village Art Center (daily 11am-4pm; free), craftspeople in 37 studios and galleries practice skills such as painting, sculpture, pottery and glassworking.

The enormous San Diego Zoo (daily: mid June-early Sept 7am-10pm; early Sept-mid June 9am-dusk; last entry an hour before closing; ), immediately north of the main museums, is one of the world's best. Its wide selection of animals, many of them rare, are restrained in "psychological cages," without bars. (Don't depend on the much-hyped but usually sleeping Chinese pandas for entertainment, however.) Basic admission , including the children's zoo, is $18.50 (kids 3-11 $9.50); a Deluxe Tour ticket ($28.50, kids $16.50) includes a bus tour and a round-trip ride on the Skyfari overhead tramway.

Balboa Park and San Diego Zoo

• Balboa Park and San Diego Zoo

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