5 Things You Must Do in Walnut Creek

Walnut Creek Car Rental

Walnut Creek (population 65,000) is 24 miles east of San Francisco and 16 miles east of Oakland. While lacking in industry, it is known as a hub for shopping and cultural events.

1 –   The Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts: This 72,000-square-foot venue has three theaters, a classroom, and an art gallery. It hosts a variety of performing arts groups and is home to the California Symphony. The Bedford Gallery hosts five to six exhibitions annually, in addition to workshops, panel discussions, lectures, and an array of public programs.

2 –   Lindsay Wildlife Museum: This facility features stage presentations and opportunities to interact with live California-native animals, plus close encounters with impaired or injured non-releasable wild creatures such as an eagle, hawk, fox, snake or mountain lion. An on-site wildlife hospital treats more than 6,000 animals every year. The museum also features changing art and natural history exhibits, classes for children and adults, and a discovery room with hands-on activities for kids.

3 –   Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site: In nearby Danville, America's only Nobel Prize- winning playwright, Eugene O'Neill, lived at the climax of his writing career. Isolated from the world in Tao House, O'Neill wrote his final and most memorable plays: “Moon For the Misbegotten,” “The Iceman Cometh,” and the autobiographical “Long Day‘s Journey Into Night.” O'Neill's interest in Eastern thought and his wife, Carlotta's, passion for Oriental art and decor inspired the home’s name, after the Chinese philosophy. Reservations are required, and visitors are shuttled to the site on National Park Service vehicles from Danville. The annual Eugene O'Neill Festival in downtown Danville and at Tao House includes film screenings, lectures and panel discussions, and live stage performances.

4 –   Open-space parks: The Walnut Creek area has an unusual amount of park space, considering its proximity to the San Francisco metropolitan area. Shell Ridge, Diablo Foothills, Lime Ridge, and Sugar Loaf open-space parks offer hiking, biking, birding, camping, and picnicking. Briones Regional Park to the northeast also has boating on its reservoir.

5 –   Mount Diablo State Park: The highest point in the S.F. Bay Area is noted for its wildflowers, extensive trail system, wildlife-viewing, camping, and distinctive rock formations. Visitors can view the stars from or bike ride to Diablo’s 3,849-foot summit, or explore the parks more-remote trails by horseback. A museum of cultural and natural history is in a historic stone building atop the peak. The museum’s tower was constructed during the late 1930s of fossiliferous sandstone blocks quarried in the park. From the summit, one can see beyond the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands; many peaks of the Coast Ranges; and, hundreds of miles away, both Mount Lassen in the Cascades range at 10,466 feet and the crest of the Sierra Nevada range.