Linda Vista, Pasadena, CA

Linda Vista is the largest neighborhood in Pasadena by area, climbing from the Arroyo Seco up into the San Rafael Hills on the city's west side. Brookside Park and the Rose Bowl sit in the canyon below, while the Annandale Golf Club and the hillside campus of Art Center share the higher ground. The homes are a mix of Spanish Colonials, English Tudors and architect-designed midcentury houses, many on estate-sized lots with views of the Rose Bowl and the mountains. Few change hands in a given year. The 1925 Holly Street bridge, with its ornate concrete railings and old-style lamps, links the neighborhood to the rest of the city. The Rose Bowl Loop is the outdoor draw, a flat, paved 3.3-mile circuit around the stadium and Brookside Golf Club that fills with walkers, runners, cyclists and dogs every day. Brookside Park covers about 61 acres and holds the Kidspace museum and the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center. Food takes a short drive. Up on Lincoln Avenue, Ferrazzani's Pasta & Market builds Italian sandwiches like mortadella with stracciatella and pistachio, and HomeState serves Texas-style breakfast tacos. The Norton Simon Museum sits at the south end on Colorado Boulevard, and Old Pasadena's restaurants are just across the Arroyo. This is a car-oriented part of the city with hillside streets, though Pasadena Transit routes 51 and 52 and Metro Local lines 180 and 256 serve the area. Groceries and errands mostly mean heading into Old Pasadena or toward the 134. The tradeoff comes on Rose Bowl event days, when games and concerts bring traffic and closed roads down to the Arroyo. On an ordinary weekday morning, people drive in from across the region to walk the loop, while those living up the hill in Linda Vista simply walk down to it.