Stories of California Missions

Discover California Mission history through true tales. Thrill to Mission San Francisco de Asís’s (also called Mision Dolores) love story that is more romantic than the legend surrounding it. In 1806 Chamberlain Nikola Rezanov, sails from St Petersburg, Russia to the windswept sands of Spanish California. Czar Alexander I has sent him to ease his grief at the loss of his wife, negotiate trade treaties, and inspect the Russian-American Company’s operations. Nikolai falls in love with Concepción Argüello, daughter of the commandant of the Presidio Of San Francisco. Nikolai and Concepción have been betrothed by the Mission padres, but there is a problem. He is Russian Orthodox, she is Roman Catholic. Normally this would make marriage impossible. However, this diplomatic marriage would link Spain and Russia just as Napoleon and the French Army loom over Europe. Will Concepción and Nikolai find happiness, or will tragedy intervene? Buy the app and find out!

It's very helpful.

Nice straightforward presentation of information with handy buttons on the bottom to quickly take you to those sections. I like the audio story feature; interesting historical narratives, well written and read. However, if you leave the story and come back, it doesn't remember where you left off, so you have to start all over again when you return. It's designed for the iPhone, so when it's on the iPad, you have the 2x option, but that makes it a little blurry. The app doesn't rotate with changing orientation of the iPad. The information on each of the 21 missions consists of a thumbnail photo, the mission name, a brief 1-2 sentence description, founded date - sometimes with some other information, address, phone number, and website link (handy). Value - with other information presentation apps you may get more for less money, but there has been some effort put into this app, especially with the writing and reading of the historical narratives. If this app rotated with iPad orientation and remembered where you left off for each story, I would give it 4 stars.