Where to stay in Ojai

Ojai is an enclosed valley of some eight thousand inhabitants, running east to west beneath the jagged ridges of the Topatopa Mountains, about twenty kilometres inland from Ventura. The centre fits into three blocks around Ojai Avenue, with the whitewashed arcade, the 1917 bell tower, the open-air bookshop Bart's Books and the Sunday farmers' market; it is the only part of the valley that can be covered on foot. The west, towards Meiners Oaks and Mira Monte, is more residential and cheaper, ten minutes from the centre along the Ojai Valley Trail, a former railway line converted into a cycle path. Route 33 then climbs towards Wheeler Gorge and the Los Padres National Forest, where the hiking begins. The well-known pink moment, the pink that takes hold of the Topatopa a few minutes before sunset, is seen above all from the east of the valley.

Three caveats. The heat first: summer commonly exceeds 35 °C in the afternoon in this valley without a sea breeze, and the swimming pool is not an amenity but a necessity from June to September. Fire next: the Thomas Fire, which broke out on 4 December 2017, covered more than 281,000 acres between Ventura and Santa Barbara and directly threatened Ojai before becoming, at the time, the largest fire in California's modern history; the valley is still classified as a high-risk zone and precautionary power shutoffs are frequent there in autumn. The pace, finally: almost everything closes between 8pm and 9pm, there is neither a hotel chain nor any useful public transport, the municipal occupancy tax comes to 15% and is added to the advertised price, and most addresses impose a two-night minimum at weekends. Ojai is chosen for what it does not have.