Carmel Mission

My wife is on a mission to visit the 21 California missions established in the late 17 and early 18 hundreds. On our travels from Santa Cruz to San Luis Obispo, I spotted a sign for the Mission San Carlos Borromeo del río Carmelo, which we hadn’t previously visited. Off Hwy 1 we veered to the headquarters for the Alta California missions and Saint Junípero Serra’s (the founder of the mission system) home for the last 14 years of his life. It is one of the most authentically restored missions in the entire system and is the only one that has its original bell and bell tower.