anaheim visitor service

Anaheim Area Places of Interest for the vacationing traveler:

The Crystal Cathedral (714 971 4000) with its 10,000 panes of glass forming a four-pointed star on Lewis Street in Garden Grove is still avant garde after 19 years. Nearby, in Santa Ana at 2002 North Main, sits Orange County's largest museum, the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art and Kidseum (714 567 3600) with its superb collections of the world's indigenous peoples. And further afield in Greater LA are all the attractions of Hollywood and the world famous museums, the Getty, the Huntington and the Norton Simon. Renowned architect Philip Johnson designerd one of Southern California's, and the world's for that matter, most beautiful structural odes to religion. The cathedral is shaped like a four-pointed star, with over 10,000 panes of glass covering the labrinthine and opalescent facade. Glinting under the Southern California sun, the Crystal Cathedral is quite a brilliant site, denomination aside.

The Block at Orange (714 769 4000) on City Boulevard West just off Hwy 22 and I-5, also opened in November 1998. It's more than 100 shops and restaurants, indeed 70 percent of the space is dedicated to entertainment. The $165 million complex has a Gameworks facility for electronic games, an AMC 30 megaplex with love seat stadium seating, and a "Central Station" with seven nightclubs under one roof. And, since this is Southern California, it has a skateboarding park.

One month later, in December 1998, another attraction opened for children, the Discovery Science Center (714 542 CUBE) at 2500 North Main, Santa Ana, educating young minds in a fun, hands-on way. Here kids can study earthquakes, explore space, fiddle with the principles of flight, try out a 1,00 square foot indoor maze or sit in a computer lab with 22 terminals. And while the little ones play wide-eyed, Dad can be raised on the Bed of Nails-3500 sharp steel nails proving equal distribution of body mass truly removes the pain from any one point of pressure.

For additional Anaheim visitor service information visit the Anaheim/Orange County Visitors and Convention Bureau at www.anaheimoc.org