Capitola, CA

Capitola sits where Soquel Creek empties into Monterey Bay, a few miles east of Santa Cruz and just west of Aptos. It is one of the smallest cities on this coast, and almost everything people picture when they hear the name happens in a few creekside blocks. Houseberry maps the whole city as a single neighborhood, so this page stretches from the colorful village and the clifftop streets above it to the busy shopping district along 41st Avenue, which lies inland near Highway 1. The village is where visitors spend their day. The inland strip is where residents buy groceries, fill the tank and head for the freeway. The calendar is built around the water. The Begonia Festival arrives in summer, the Art and Wine Festival follows in early fall, and Surfing Santa opens the holiday season, each one pulling crowds onto the beach and across the creek. The Capitola Historical Museum keeps the story of the old resort days on display for anyone who wants the background. For a special dinner, locals point to Shadowbrook Restaurant, where a small cable car carries guests down the hillside to a dining room beside the creek. Gayle's Bakery is the everyday counter, loaded with pastries, pies and deli food. East End Gastropub on 41st Avenue does burgers, pizza and craft beer, and Sante Adairius Rustic Ales is the town's craft brewery. Daily life splits into two modes. In the village, walking is the way to go. In the inland districts, the car is the way to go, and Highway 1 connects the city to Santa Cruz in one direction and Aptos in the other. A town this small draws more people than it can hold. Summer weekends and festival days bring heavy traffic and hard-to-find parking, and residents learn to run errands early or at odd hours. Between those peaks in Capitola, the creek, the beach and the cottages on the slope are what hold the place together, and they look much the same on a quiet weekday as they do in a photograph.