(The original article includes information about writer's visit to Bonfante Gardens in Gilroy, California. An abridged version of the article follows containing the writer's text on the Pleasure Point Inn and the Santa Cruz area. The full text can be found at: http://www.latimes.com/)

I like to zoom around and see things when I travel, while my wife, Iris, prefers to relax by a beach. So when I suggested a visit to Bonfante Gardens, I quickly added that a new B&B called the Pleasure Point Inn had opened in Santa Cruz. It boasts of having "the best ocean view," as voted by travelers surveyed by a trade journal. The inn's large and protected rooftop deck has a big hot tub for relaxing and sunning. That convinced her.

After the heat of the day, Santa Cruz felt good--even chilly--and we were glad our room at the year-old Pleasure Point Inn had a gas fireplace. Before we had even unpacked, we were up on the roof unwinding in the hot tub and admiring the expanse of Monterey Bay and the distant, foggy peninsula. Our room had an ocean view and was comfortable, with a crisp, modern design. No froufrou, no cutesy, no country curtains. I learned the next morning that our innkeeper was a semiretired interior decorator.

He laid out a classy breakfast too, with a centerpiece of melons, mangoes, kiwi and fresh berries. Delicious breads and pastries from local bakeries, homemade jam, excellent coffees and teas--we got so full that we ended up skipping lunch. (Breakfast is included in the nightly rate, which starts at $160; we paid $211.50 plus tax.)

Both our boys live up north, so they joined us Saturday. While my wife did her relaxing on the rooftop deck, my sons and I went for a long walk on the beach, exploring pools at low tide, picking up shells and watching the surfers. Pleasure Point is considered one of the best surf spots on the coast, with sweet, shapely swells made glassy by kelp beds.

After the tide came in, we walked back along a bike path on the bluff. We were tempted to rent bikes around the corner on 41st Avenue, because this is such a cycling town. Instead we all took a boardwalk that runs through wildly overgrown Neary Lagoon, with entrances off Bay and Blackburn streets. Yard-long carp live in these cloudy waters. It's a fun, though virtually unknown, outing near the center of Santa Cruz.

For dinner, our sons suggested El Palomar downtown on Pacific Avenue. The restaurant fills the huge, vaulted lobby of an old hotel. I had enchiladas de cangrejo, with some of the freshest crab I've tasted. My wife found a favorite, pozole. After dinner we returned to our inn for a moonlight soak, looking at the stars and the string of lights circling Monterey Bay. Ahhh.

Sunday we lazed the morning away, went for another walk along the beach and drove to the Seymour Marine Discovery Center (http://www2.ucsc.edu/seymourcenter) in Santa Cruz, perched on a point above Natural Bridges State Beach. Like Bonfante, this place would be fun with little kids. We learned that decorator crabs change their seaweed camouflage to match their surroundings, that sunflower stars can move 2 centimeters in six seconds (pretty fast) and that sealskin is really soft.

Outside sits the fantastic 87-foot skeleton of a blue whale, the largest on display anywhere, according to the center. Here we said our goodbyes to Santa Cruz and headed back over the hill, our faces stinging from a good three-day dose of sun, wind and salt water.

Robert Smaus, formerly the garden editor at The Times, is the author of "Answers for California Gardeners" (Los Angeles Times Books, 2002).

Copyright, 2002, Los Angeles Times. Reprinted by permission.