"The Island Lady has taken a vacation from it all," Tiffani Ross Parker said, pointing to her painting of a woman reclining seaside under a coconut tree and a hot pink sky.
SPEND an evening at the tree-lined Seaside Bar on Ikoyi Island and it is possible to come away with a rosy view of Lagos.
This, we soon discovered, was because we were the only guests at the resort, a seven-room property scattered over 61 tree-dotted seaside acres.
But we can't resist exploring nearby small villages on their own coves: Tamariú, Aigua Xelida, Sa Tuna, Aiguafreda, and Llafranc, where the simple but immaculate little Hotel Llafranc sits along the tree-shaded seaside promenade.
All of which has taken us a long way from the seaside hills and blossoming fruit trees of Capri and Pacific Palisades.
An eclectic mix of locals and tourists gather seaside in Kapiolani Park, among "the trees, the powers of the sun and wind on the surf, the serenity of the glistening ocean, the expansive sky...it's yoga the way it was intended to be .Classes are taught five days a week and are donation-based for locals.
Adventures by the Sea (299 Cannery Row, Monterey; 831-372-1807; www.adventuresbikessea.com) rents bikes for $7 an hour and is an easy five miles from the drive's most scenic stretches, which are lined with sandy beaches, golf courses and a 250-year-old cypress tree sprouting from a seaside boulder.
"I got off the plane in San Diego and felt filled with energy," Mr. Beach said, describing the city as "Santa Fe with boats" and La Jolla, a seaside suburb, as "Greenwich with palm trees".
And, come four o'clock, the Winter Garden is packed with tea parties gobbling cucumber sandwiches made of regulation-issue white-bread triangles, while a tristful harpist completes recollections of rainy afternoons trapped in British seaside palm courts, even though the trees here are fake.
The wind barrels in relentlessly off the Atlantic, sweeping the hillside and everything with it: the mountain face is hollowed by the warm blasts, palm trees arch backward, their seaside fronds thinned from the constant howl, waves endlessly roll in from the vast ocean.
