University Avenue, Palo Alto

Under the freeway overpass, and north of Stanford University campus, is a strip of cafes and stores that is a lively spot filled with students during the academic year. Stanford has a diverse campus with mostly Chinese, plus some Korean, Turkish, Persian, Indian, Pakistani, Canadian, French, and Brazilian students. Many of the buildings on University Avenue are historic with decorative trim around the edges. A triangular fountain with infinity edges, tables and chairs with umbrellas, ping pong tables, and occasional live music are found at Lytton Plaza, on the corner of University Ave and Emerson Street- kids enjoy watching the fountain, though there are sometimes homeless people yelling in the plaza. Across from Lytton Plaza is the historic 1920s Stanford Theater, with Moorish architecture, and you can catch a movie produced before the 1970s here- the Wurlitzer organ is played during intermission. On University Ave, the cafes themselves are not very clean or high quality, and some of the stores, like the Miniso (asian goods) store, are in musty buildings. Homeless people sometimes walk into cafes. There are some handy stores in this area, like Whole Foods Market, Patagonia sports clothing, Apple store, and Fjall Raven backpacks. One street over, on Lytton Ave, you can find Mademoiselle Colette, a patisserie. Blue Bottle Coffee is in a historic theater plaza. 

You can take a wonderful walk from this area around the neighborhood of mansions and tall redwood and pine trees. Upper University Ave is a good choice, as is Waverley Street. This area of mansions is one of the few pretty areas in Silicon Valley.
Also in Palo Alto, but closer to Mountain View, is Foster Museum, a wonderful single-artist museum that shows Foster's travels all over the world, and the beautiful paintings and collected items that came about as a result. The whole family loved it.

Directions

There is 2-hour parking along the side streets such as Waverley Street.

Click on map for interactive view