Orange County, like many places in the greater Los Angeles region, was almost entirely built around the car. Even in Los Angeles, which has many more walkable neighborhoods than it gets credit for, it can still be hard to find a place that feels like it was built specifically around transit and walking. In Orange County, that narrows to a tiny handful of historic places built prior to the dominance of the automobile. Fortunately, one of them is very accessible by train, and it is one of the most charming day trips you can take from Los Angeles.
San Juan Capistrano is a small town at the southern end of Orange County, built around one of the original Spanish California missions, which is now a popular tourist attraction. In fact, the whole neighborhood surrounding the mission has become a tourist attraction, given that it is one of the oldest neighborhoods in California. And right in the middle of it is a perfectly placed train station just an hour and a half’s ride from Union Station.
San Juan Capistrano (SJC) is served by three train lines: the Metrolink Orange County and Inland Empire-Orange County lines and the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner. (UPDATE 1/25/2024: Due to a landslide closing the tracks through San Clemente, only a handful of Surfliner trains to and from Los Angeles are running, with Metrolink service to San Juan Capistrano only on weekends. Check the Surfliner’s Travel Advisories page for a current schedule.)
From Union Station, Amtrak is the more expensive but more frequent option, with trains running fairly regularly at times convenient for sightseeing. One-way Amtrak fares from Union Station to SJC run about $20-$25, while weekday one-way Metrolink fares are half that at $12.50. Even better is Metrolink’s weekend pass, which gives you unlimited Metrolink rides on Saturdays or Sundays for only $10. However, those low fares come with a limited number of trains you can take (on weekdays, only one Metrolink train runs from Union Station to SJC in the morning, with one returning in the afternoon). It’s still doable, but just requires some careful planning.
Whichever option you choose, it’s a comfortable ride either way. The trip from Los Angeles isn’t conventionally scenic, but the views are certainly varied, shifting from a stretch of the Los Angeles River past the Downtown skyline before passing through a mostly industrial section of the Eastside, which gradually transitions to suburbs as you enter Orange County. Along the way, you can observe many delightful things from the train: the small park after Norwalk station often filled with prairie dogs, the brief glimpse you get of Disneyland’s Matterhorn before pulling into Anaheim, an archery range after passing under the freeway after Orange, Santa Ana’s beautiful Spanish Revival train station, or the bright orange balloon ride in Irvine’s Great Park. After you pass the vast office complexes of Irvine, you’ll get the first hints that you’re emerging out of suburbia: a few isolated agricultural fields, yet to be swallowed up by the urban sprawl, and the mountains growing closer as the Los Angeles Basin gives way to a broad valley between the Santa Ana Mountains to the east and the San Joaquin Hills along the coast. Within this valley sits the quiet town of San Juan Capistrano.
San Juan Capistrano charms you as soon as you step off the train. The old station (now a restaurant), the Capistrano Depot, is a beautiful old brick building built in Mission Revival style, with a domed tower on one corner overlooking a restaurant patio. The platform stretches up to a pair of boxcars, which hold the Amtrak ticket office, while tall trees across the tracks shelter the station from the neighborhood beyond. A busy pedestrian crossing across the tracks sits in the middle of the platform, and each train that stops here creates a brief flurry of activity and noise: the crossing bell starts dinging, the gates go down, the approaching train blares its horn before slowing to a stop, where it blocks the crossing. People flow out, gather around the train, some waving at the passengers still on board, and then the train takes off, the gates go back up, and all goes peaceful once again.
Once this brief cacophony surrounding the train vanishes, you can start to appreciate the pedestrian scale of your surroundings. On the other side of the tracks from the platform is a small but welcoming plaza that leads into the Los Rios Historic District, easily the most charming part of San Juan Capistrano. Los Rios Street is a shady residential street lined with lovely old houses draped in willows, eucalyptus, and palm trees. Indeed, Los Rios is the oldest continuously inhabited residential neighborhood in California, with people having lived here since the late 1700s. The street itself is very calm, with pedestrians free to walk down the middle, parting for the occasional car.
Along the street, the various houses have been converted to hold cafes, shops and galleries, often with quirky, old-fashioned signs to draw people in, alongside lush planting beds of succulents, palms, and colorful flowers. At one spot along the street, the twisting trunk of an oak tree is adorned with a little wooden sign that reads, “Old Mr. Tree, Circa 1800.” Directly across from the train station is charming Hidden House Coffee, which is always popular and has plenty of tables out front in the shade, and is a great place to start if you need a pick-me-up before walking around the neighborhood.
Right around the corner from Hidden House Coffee, just a little ways down River Street, is Zoomars Petting Zoo, which is easily the best place in town to take kids, but is great for anyone who likes cute animals. Admission is currently $15 for adults and $12 for children, and you’ll see plenty of delightful animals you can feed and interact with: chickens, piglets, goats, sheep, ponies, llamas, guinea pigs, bunnies, and even an emu, all kept in tidy pens and looking very well taken care of. There’s also a handful of kiddie rides and a playground for the little ones, as well as some goofy “old west” props near the party area.
Across the street from the petting zoo, there’s currently a lot of construction going on for the new River Street Marketplace, an upcoming food hall and retail complex that looks very promising. It’s set to open in 2024; keep your eyes peeled.
Back at the corner of Los Rios and River Streets, you’ll find the San Juan Capistrano Historical Society Museum, which preserves five separate historic structures on its grounds. The centerpiece of the property is the O’Neill Museum, housed in a humble wood-frame house dating back to 1880. Inside, you’ll find the headquarters of the historical society, with the rooms furnished with period furniture and lots of displays, including a small library in the back where you can find all sorts of old paraphernalia and historic photographs, as well as a small number of books for sale. Admission to the museum inside is by donation.
Elsewhere on the property there are a couple other historic houses, including a 1910s craftsman bungalow in the back, a wooden building that was on the ranch that previously existed at this site, and the Silvas Adobe, which dates back to 1794 and holds a small art gallery. Also on the property is the ludicrous-looking Old Jail, which was constructed in the 1890s and resembles a giant bird cage. The historical society also runs guided walking tours of the Los Rios neighborhood and the museum grounds, which start at 1pm every Saturday at the train station.
Just up Los Rios Street past the train station, perhaps the best feature of the neighborhood is Los Rios Park, a public park that stretches from Los Rios all the way back to Trabuco Creek, a channelized stream running through town. At the entrance to the park is a small preserved adobe, the Montanez Adobe, that’s one of the oldest existing buildings in town and is surrounded by a lush butterfly garden filled with fragrant native flowers.
Across from the adobe is a wall of historic photographs of San Juan Capistrano. The captions for these photographs go into superb detail about the history of the town, and are actually more willing to delve into some of the darker details of the town’s history than you’ll find at the local history museums. For instance, there’s the striking story of a young Hispanic woman whose property was bisected by the newly constructed railroad in the 1880s. In response, she strung up her laundry across the train tracks and was subsequently arrested for her act of protest. She died shortly into her prison sentence. Though grim, including stories like these offers a much-needed corrective to the often overly-romanticized telling of the town’s history.
In the back of the park is a nice, Old West-themed playground, with a pair of large sandstone boulders perfect for kids to climb. There’s also clean public restrooms, water fountains, and lots of picnic tables scattered around the park, with plenty of shady trees and a vine trellis. And along the very back of the park is the concrete channel of Trabuco Creek, with a paralleling bike path, although it’s fenced off from the park and you have to go a little out of the way to access it.
Returning to the train station and crossing the tracks, you’ll enter “Downtown” San Juan Capistrano, with its mixture of genuinely old buildings and newer lookalikes. It’s extremely compact; walk about three blocks in any direction and you’ll hit the typical strip malls and fast food restaurants of Orange County suburbia. Feel free to grab a map from the small info booth in front of the clock tower.
The train station sits at the end of Verdugo Street, which spans only a block and leads you up past several restaurants and the town’s movie theater to Camino Capistrano, the town’s main street. The mission sits just around the corner to the left, while the intersection itself is surrounded by several shopping complexes. The most notable store here is the Old Barn Antique Mall, which takes up nearly the entire block south of Verdugo and consists of several storefronts that are internally connected, creating one giant antique store inside. The shelves are dense with objects, which include some rather peculiar examples of old Orange County paraphernalia if you look hard enough.
This block of Camino Capistrano is also where you’ll find some of the town’s best eateries. On the corner of Verdugo Street is Breezy, a very well-regarded brunch place, while just down Verdugo is 3:16 Bakery Shop, which has a nice gelato shop inside. And on Camino Capistrano, inside the Mission Promenade mall, is FKN Bread, a fantastic bakery that makes marvelous sandwiches and loaves of bread to take home (they insist that their name is pronounced as initials, as in ‘F-K-N Bread,’ although given that their bags say “life is FKN awesome,” one gets the distinct impression that they’re in on the joke). There’s no seating inside, but you can easily find seats and benches around the Mission Promenade or one of the other nearby shopping malls.
But San Juan Capistrano’s most renowned eatery, at least of time of writing, is Heritage Barbecue, which sits on Camino Capistrano directly across the street from the mission. A Texas-style BBQ joint (you can spot a Texas flag next to the smokers outside), Heritage is a relatively new restaurant that has quickly garnered a loyal following. After ordering from the window out front, head over to the bar and get yourself a drink before finding a seat at one of the picnic tables on the patio. The lines will get very long on the weekends, but the food is well worth it. The brisket and sausage links are delicious, as are the sides (we tried the peppery coleslaw), and the portions are generous.
Having filled up on barbecue, let’s conclude with the town’s main attraction, and really the entire reason for the town’s existence: the Mission San Juan Capistrano.
From the street, the mission appears as just a blank wall with a large gift shop facing the road next to the entrance. Admission is currently $18 per person, but on the other side of that wall is one of the most picturesque historic sites in all of California. As soon as you pass through the entrance building, you’re immersed in a beautiful setting.
The mission is broken up into two main courtyards. The entry courtyard is filled with massive bushes of colorful flowers, creating a riot of color. There’s the occasional artifact like an old wooden cart or millstone dotting the courtyard, while a large stone fountain sits in the middle, with huge koi fish swimming under the thick lily pads. To your left is a reconstruction of a soldiers barracks, which now holds a little theater playing the introductory film. Straight ahead is the reconstructed mission complex, while to your right are the spectacular ruins of the Great Stone Church.
Most of the mission buildings are actually reconstructions from the early 20th century. Save for the occasional foundation or wall here or there, much of what you’re seeing are recreations (and sometimes romanticizations) of the original mission. But the Great Stone Church is the genuine remains of a huge chapel that stood on this site, and it is very impressive. Felled by an earthquake in 1812, the huge nave now sits exposed to the sky, its thick stone walls crumbling and its soaring arches broken and vanishing into thin air. Even walking through it today, you get a sense of how impressive it must have been when it was still standing.
Next to the ruins of the church is an ironic detail. Adjacent to a statue of Junipero Serra and below a set of mission bells is a plaque embedded in the wall commemorating the 1969 visit of then-President Richard Nixon and his wife. Nixon was born in Orange County, and after resigning in the wake of Watergate, he would settle just down the road in San Clemente. In spite of his disgraced departure from the presidency, the plaque remains to this day, a testament to how popular Nixon remained in Orange County.
Around the other side of the church ruins is an exhibit on the famed swallows of Capistrano, which have taken on a near-mythical status. Historically, massive flocks of cliff swallows would migrate through the area and build nests in the walls of the mission, owing to a healthy supply of insects to feed on from the nearby river. In the 1910s, the leaders of the mission adopted the swallow as an icon and popularized their annual migration to generate interest in restoring the old mission, immortalizing the phenomenon in songs and literature.
Although the swallow is still a symbol of the town, the famed “return of the swallows” hasn’t happened in years due to the urban development of the area, which has depleted the food supply while also giving the swallows other places to build nests. Despite the lack of swallows, the tradition is still celebrated with a festival on March 19 (St. Joseph’s Day) and a parade the same weekend.
The main part of the mission surrounds a large, grassy courtyard, with another koi-filled fountain in the middle. On the side next to the cemetery is the Serra Chapel, still a functioning church. It’s a surprising feature in the middle of this popular tourist attraction: a quiet sanctuary of dim candle light, where you can sit in one of the pews, surrounded by immaculate paintings and statuary in reverent silence. Just behind the Chapel is a cemetery and a tranquil little brick courtyard with a burbling fountain behind the mission bells. The other rooms of the mission complex all hold exhibits explaining life in the mission. One display shows the typical schedule of a missionary, which makes you realize how harshly regimented their days were. A particularly interesting historical exhibit sits in the very back corner, where you’ll find the ruins of the outdoor kitchen, wine vats, and industrial areas of the mission.
The irony in all of this is that the real historical significance of Mission San Juan Capistrano might not necessarily be in its function as a mission, but the role it played in selling a romanticized image of California for modern day purposes. San Juan Capistrano in particular, with its captivating ruins of its old stone church, became a tourist curiosity and helped inspired restoration efforts for the entire string of Spanish missions up and down the state. But the restorations were not based in historic accuracy. The lush gardens, arguably the main attraction of the mission, are an invention of the early 20th century. And suffice to say, the harsh and often barbaric treatment of Indigenous people that occurred at every Spanish mission is a topic that is downplayed, only briefly mentioned in the museum’s single exhibit on Indigenous culture. This is Main Street, U.S.A. for Spanish Colonial history, which isn’t to say that you shouldn’t visit, but just understand that there’s a lot being left out of the picture.
Another legacy of the mission sits just to the north off-grounds: the Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano. This massive church, easily the tallest building in town, is loosely modeled after what the Great Stone Church would have looked like while it was still standing. Its red dome and tall bell tower loom over Camino Capistrano, and inside it feels like a cathedral. Should you be lucky enough to visit during mass (which are scheduled pretty regularly on the weekends), it’s worth entering to admire the soaring architecture within.
Be sure to keep a close eye on the time so you can return to the train station to catch your return train. If you study the weekend train schedule carefully, you might even be able to fit in a quick trip down the coast to admire the scenery. At any rate, the schedule should afford you plenty of time to leisurely explore one of the prettiest towns in California.
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