The Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (also known as the Carmel Mission), dates from the late 18th century, and served as headquarters to the famed Father Junipero Serra.
Father Serra founded the first of California's missions in San Diego in 1769, when he was 56 years old. He was only 5 feet, 2 inches tall, suffered from asthma and one of his legs was seriously injured. Yet Serra himself established nine missions in California, with a total of twenty-one missions eventually being established along the El Camino Real, from San Diego to Sonoma, a distance of 700 miles. On August 28, 1784, at the age of 70 and after traveling 24,000 miles, Father Junipero Serra died at Mission San Carlos Borromeo and is buried there under the sanctuary floor.
