Old Town San Diego on a Sunday, and the tortillas that were worth the drive.

The plan, such as it was, involved getting there before the crowds and finding the tortillas my mom had heard about from someone whose name she could not remember. That is usually how her recommendations work. Sourced from a friend of a friend, delivered with complete confidence.

She was right, which is also usually how it works.

Old Town Mexican Cafe is on San Diego Avenue, and the handmade tortillas are still central to what the restaurant does. Its current website says it has two tortilla kitchens with two shifts of tortilla makers producing flour and corn tortillas. You can watch part of the work through the street-facing window, which turns an ordinary walk down the block into a reason to stop.

We stood there longer than was probably normal. Nobody seemed to mind.

The Harney Street Market was a few blocks away. Current official listings place it on Harney Street between San Diego Avenue and Congress Street on Saturdays and Sundays. The standard posted hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., although San Diego's 2026 event listings show longer peak-season hours on some dates. Check the day's listing before making the drive.

It is an artisan market rather than a serious produce market: jewelry, pottery, photography, clothing, paintings, glass, woodworking, and small objects that become unexpectedly important once you are standing in front of them.

My mom bought something small. She always does. She has a considered relationship with objects that I do not share, which means she can spot the one thing in a row of booths that is actually worth owning. I watched her pick up a painted ceramic piece and put it down three times before she bought it. She carries things like that for years.

What Old Town does well on a weekend is layer. Historic buildings, courtyards, music, restaurants, shops, and market booths sit close enough together that wandering works better than an itinerary.

It is also genuinely a tourist area. The prices reflect that, and some shops are more postcard than craft. But with the market running and tortillas being made in view of the sidewalk, it still feels like a place doing real work inside the performance.

We did not need a complicated plan. We needed warm tortillas, a few hours with no agenda, and enough restraint not to buy every small painted thing.

That is the whole trip.