Experience the best of Loreto
Loreto is a small town on the Sea of Cortez in Baja California Sur, with the first permanent mission of the Californias and a marine park offshore.
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Loreto sits on the Gulf of California, also called the Sea of Cortez, on the eastern coast of the Baja California peninsula, below the Sierra de la Giganta mountains. In 1697 Jesuit missionaries founded the mission of Nuestra Señora de Loreto here, the first permanent mission in the Californias, and the town was the capital of the Spanish territory for decades. The stone mission church and its museum stand in the old centre.
The Bay of Loreto National Park protects islands and sea, including Coronado, Carmen and Danzante, where boats take people snorkelling with sea lions and fishing. Blue whales feed in the gulf in winter and early spring. A mountain road leads into the Sierra de la Giganta to the mission at San Javier, an eighteenth-century stone church in a green valley.
Fresh fish, shrimp, clams and scallops fill the menus, served in tacos, ceviche and grilled platters, and local cooks make machaca, dried shredded beef, and wide flour tortillas in the Baja style. The gulf is calm and sunny through the mild winter, and late summer brings fierce heat and the occasional storm.
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Top experiences in Loreto
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