Newport Beach: Bikes, Boats, Beaches and Frozen Banana Wars

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA – Designer name shops? Check. Celebrity-studded waterfront? Check. Posh hotels with sumptuous spas overlooking the coast? Check on that, too.
Newport Beach is known as one of the more elegant destinations in southern California, and rightfully so. But it’s also got its fun, casual side, with waterfront carnival rides and corn dogs, a remarkable set of beach homes you can rent for next to nothing, and an ongoing, decades-old fight between two businesses who both claim to have invented the frozen, chocolate-dipped banana.
I recently had a weekend to explore the charms of this popular city, which is just a few minutes from John Wayne Orange County Airport and perhaps a half hour or 45 minutes south of LAX.
The natural setting is a gift from the gods; a lovely, variable-shaped harbour with plenty of zigs and zags, a tremendous beach backed by golden, craggy cliffs and some of the best, year-round weather in the U.S.

The entrance to Newport Harbor. JIM BYERS PHOTO

Our first day featured a ride around Newport Harbor on a so-called Duffy Boat with Carolyn Clark, who works with a group called Newport At Your Feet, which does all sorts of Southern California tours. The boats are electric models named after the former mayor of Newport Beach, who developed the vessels, so they’ve environmentally friendly.
We start our tour at a pier next to the Balboa Fun Zone, which was occasionally featured on the TV show “The OC” and where you’ll find a Ferris Wheel and other rides, as well as carnival games and the kind of perfect, greasy food one expects at an old-time amusement park. Pretty soon we’re out on the harbor.
“It’s like an adult bathtub toy,” the engaging Clark tells us as we bop along the water’s surface under a deep blue sky with puffy white clouds. Clark points out various items of interest, including an old dance hall where legendary jazz stars like Stan Kenton and Harry James used to play and also homes owned by the likes of Bill Medley, one of the Righteous Brothers. She also points out the home where Shirley Temple once lived.
Clark explains how there’s a 3-mile public boardwalk that encircles Balboa Island, a popular shopping and walking and dining area in the harbor.

Carolyn Clark of Newport On Your Feet pilots a Duffy Boat in Newport Harbor. JIM BYERS PHOTO

I ask about the company name, Newport At Your Feet, and Clark laughs. “My husband says I drive the boat all the time, so it’s really Newport On Your Ass,” she says.
I love her ability to laugh at herself and admire her deep knowledge base. More than that, her love for her job shines through with the intensity of the summer Newport Beach sun.
“I just love being out on the water,” she shrugs. “It’s a wonderful job.”
Clark later points out elegant homes that once belonged to John Wayne, the folks from French’s Mustard and Buddy Ebsen, the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. We also pass homes with statues of the Statue of Liberty and Ronald Reagan, and spot a small beach where part of the movie “The Sands of Iwo Jima” was filmed.
Clark tells us that Lido Island is getting a nice remake these days, with a new Marriott Autograph Collection hotel and new restaurants.

CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO OF OUR TOUR.

We didn’t take time to stop (I have enough calories in my life, but still wish I’d have at least gone for a couple minutes), but Clark also told us about the famous frozen banana wars. If you drive down the main drag on Balboa Island you’ll find a shop called “Dad’s” and then another that says “Sugar and Spice.” Both suggest they originated the frozen, chocolate-dipped banana as they both include the word “original” in their old-timey signs, which I adore. I note there are only two buildings between the two banana combatants, one of them a church.

Sugar and Spice says it’s been serving chocolate-dipped, frozen bananas since 1945. JIM BYERS PHOTO

Apparently Newport folks each have a favourite, with strong disagreements common between backers of Dad’s and supporters of Sugar and Spice (not unlike the great bagel debate in Montreal between Fairmount and St. Viateur, I suspect).
The next morning we check out the beach at Crystal Cove State Park, which drivers whizzing past on the Pacific Coast Highway can hardly see but is one of the prettiest spots along a very lovely coastline. Even better, perhaps, than the rugged headlands and gentle surf and views of Catalina Island is that the park boasts a series of funky cottages that were built back at a time when folks were allowed to erect homes on the beach. They fell into disrepair for quite some time but local conservationists worked to get them functional again, and now they’re very much sought after as affordable, large homes you can rent and be right on – or immediately adjacent to – the beach.
The units feel as if they’re from another time; lots of natural wood and a very nice, lived-in kind of look; with towels draped over the furniture to get dry and running shoes and flip flops that have been hurriedly discarded and scattered over front patios.

Crystal Cove State Beach is just a few minutes south of Newport Beach. JIM BYERS PHOTO

One of the big attractions is the Beachcomber cafe, a wildly popular dining spot that sits right on the sand. Breakfast lineups can be quite long, but we manage a table pretty quickly and sit down to a wonderful meal, which begins with hot, fluffy beignets worthy of New Orleans; dusted with powdered sugar and served with maple syrup and whipped crème. I also sample some very good fried chicken and biscuits and a tasty, filling skillet breakfast with eggs, bacon, veggies, Portuguese sausage and other bits.
The restaurant will cook up burgers and hot dogs for folks who want to have a beach barbeque, a tourism official told me.
The complex also features a small, outdoor bar called Bootleggers, and there’s a little community centre building where folks can go to check on what’s new or read a book. When I popped my head in on a Sunday morning, a trio of girls of about 11 or 12 years old were gathered on a soft reading a book together, and how nice is that?

Old cabins have been restored at Crystal Cove State Beach and can be rented by the public. JIM BYERS PHOTO

I was told the folks who stay here raise a flag with a martini glass on it every night at sunset, and that a bugle recording plays as the flag rises up the pole.
The units are apparently quite affordable but get snapped up fast on the California government’s website, which lists them six months? In advance.
Later in the day we take a ride around town with Joe Carter from Pedego Corona Del Mar, who gives us some tips on riding the Pedego electric bikes (electric boats, electric bikes: nice) and then gives a marvellous tour of the area.
We start near Corona Del Mar beach, one of the prettiest in the state. The wildflowers are out in full force when we’re there, so we’re treated to a Crayola box worth of colours that contrast wonderfully with the golden cliffs that plunge down to the sand.

CLICK HERE FOR A SHORT CORONA DEL MAR VIDEO AT HIDDEN BEACH

Carter points out multi-million-dollar homes overlooking the water, with a huge variety of styles. One is called the Harry Potter House, as it looks like a dark and woodsy Hogwarts. Others have a New England or Italian Renaissance style. Pretty much anything goes, which is perhaps not surprising in a laissez-faire state like California.

Hidden Beach at Corona Del Mar, California. JIM BYERS PHOTO

We later take the ferry over to Balboa Peninsula and check out more beautiful homes and the long wooden pier that juts out into the Pacific.
Carter takes us past the channel that leads to the harbor, which apparently was the setting for the opening scene of a boat heading to sea on the old “Gilligan’s Island” TV show.
Lucky for us, we’re on bikes, a three-hour tour on the ocean. We hop back on board, kick up the motors and slide back to the Pedego shop on a warm, March afternoon.

Next up: The wonderful Fashion Island Hotel and fine dinner options in Newport Beach

My trip to Newport Beach was subsidized by Newport Beach Tourism, which did not see this report or approve of its contents prior to publication.