Quiet california - Palm Springs

Sitting in lush farming land, replete with manicured golf courses, condominiums and millionaires, PALM SPRINGS does not conform to any typical image of the desert, embodying a strange mix of Spanish Colonial and mid-century modern styling. The massive bulk of Mount San Jacinto looms over its low-slung buildings, casting a welcome shadow over the town in the late afternoon.

Ever since Hollywood stars first came here in the 1930s, laying claim to ranch-style estates and holing up in elite hotels, the clean dry air and sunshine, just 120 miles east of LA, have made Palm Springs irresistible. For years, high-school kids arrived in their thousands for Spring Break, until civic zeal ran them out of town, while others come specifically to sober up: the Betty Ford Center in nearby Rancho Mirage draws a star-studded patient list to its booze- and drug-free environment, attempting to undo a lifetime's worth of behavioral disorders in an $11,000 28-day stay.

ExploringMost visitors to Palm Springs never leave the poolside, but desert enthusiasts still visit to hike and ride in the Indian Canyons (daily 8am-5pm, summer schedule varies; $6; tel 760/325-5673), three miles southeast of downtown along S Palm Canyon Drive. Centuries ago, ancestors of the Cahuilla developed extensive communities here, growing melons, squash, beans and corn. The canyons are about fifteen miles long, and can be toured by car, although it's worth walking at least a few miles; the easiest trails lead past the waterfalls, rocky gorges and palm trees of Palm Canyon and Andreas Canyon . Some areas are set aside for trailblazing in jeeps and four-wheel-drives; rent a vehicle from Off-Road Rentals, four miles north of town at 59755 Hwy-111 (Sept-June only; $30 per hour; tel 760/325-0376, ), or take a guided jeep adventure around the Santa Rosa Mountains with Desert Adventures, 67555 E Palm Canyon Drive, Cathedral City ($89 for 3hr trip, $109 for 4hr; tel 760/324-JEEP, ).

If the desert heat becomes too much to bear, large cable cars grind and sway over eight thousand feet up the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway , Tramway Road, just off Hwy-111 north of Palm Springs (daily 10am-9.45pm, weekends open at 8am; $20.80, kids 3-12 $13.80; tel 760/325-1391, ), passing through five climatic zones on the way to the 10,815ft summit of Mount San Jacinto, where there's a bar and restaurant at the Mountain Station.

Luxury
Downtown Palm Springs stretches for half a mile along Palm Canyon Drive , a wide, bright and modern strip of upscale boutiques that has engulfed the town's original Spanish village-style structures. Shops run the gamut from Saks Fifth Avenue to tacky T-shirt emporia and bookstores devoted exclusively to dead Hollywood stars.

The luxuriously housed Desert Museum , 101 Museum Drive (Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; end of July through end of Sept, Fri-Sun only, 10am-5pm; $7.50; ), is strong on Native American and Southwestern art, though its only permanent display is the late actor William Holden's collection of Asian and African works. Some interesting natural science exhibits focus on the animal and plant life of the desert, demonstrating that it's not all sandstorms and rattlesnakes. There is a modern art gallery and some lovely sculpture courts on the museum grounds, and the museum hosts performances in the 450-seat Annenberg Theater (tickets available at 760/325-4490, ). The major cultural center in the desert is the McCallum Theater , 73000 Fred Waring Drive, Palm Desert, presenting films, live music, opera, ballet and plays (tel 760/340-2787, ).

Not to be missed is the striking Tramway Gas Station , 2901 N Palm Canyon Drive, a classic gem of pop architecture with an upswept roof and boomerang-modern design, since converted into the Montana St Martin art gallery , which hosts a wide range of sculptural and design exhibits (daily 11am-5pm, weekends open at 9am; tel 760/340-2787). There's also an anarchic piece of landscape gardening at Moorten Botanical Gardens , 1701 S Palm Canyon Drive (Mon-Sat 9am-4.30pm, Sun 10am-4pm; $2.50), a strange cornucopia of every desert plant and cactus, in settings designed to simulate their natural environments, but lumped together in no particular order.