Los Angeles

Well here Sunday night at about 10.30pm, and taxied to Venice Beach to our apartment. The owner met us and showed us the stuff we need to know. Linda and I went for a walk on the beach and around the general area before bed. The apartment is only 50 meters from the beach.

Monday

Linda and I were up early so we walked along the beach to Venice and had a proper coffee! The sand is about 250 meters to the water - massive. We all wandered down to a local cafe (Cowes End) for breakfast and at about 11 we went to collect the Mustang from the airport - brand new. It is so good to drive a V8. We took the run north to Malibu where we had lunch on the pier. The weather is about 30C each day - perfect.

We drive back south to Venice go the coast and Sophie and I went for a swim straight out behind we're we are staying. The water is very warm. A very late dinner at a local steak house.

Tuesday

Los Angeles is so spread out and you really do need a car to get around. Public transport does exist but there are multiple bus companies, few train lines and the buses have to compete with the traffic. Late morning we headed north along the coast and then turned west into the Santa Monica hills and up to the start of the Mullholland Hwy. There was great views and it was good to have the V8 to belt around the hills and it got me used to driving on the right.

Mullholland Hwy turns into Mullholland Drive (film). Mullholland Drive is famous for celebrity houses and views of the Hollywood Hills. Unfortunately well into the Santa Monica Hills the road turned into a rough dirt track. I didn't want to take an open top hire car on the track, so reprogrammed the GPS and headed onto the 101 Freeway to pickup our trail closer to Hollywood. Los Angeles, Hollywood, V8 convertible on a 6 lane freeway at 80 mph And driving on the right hand side of the road - what could be better? Linda was terrified,

GPS man had us exit the freeway, and pickup Mullholland Drv, where we saw great views of Hollywood and started our exposer to commercialism of Hollywood (future stories about carpal, tour buses, cars, and locals). It was getting into early evening so instead of heading into central Hollywood and at Sophie's request we headed back to the coast to see the Santa Monica pier. This pier is at the end of the Venice Beach board walk and has a small amusment park on it - you may have seen on movies or Tv shows. It is also the official west end of Route 66.

We wandered z around taking photos (the sun was setting) and soaking up the atmosphere, Sophie and I had a ride on the roller coaster and we had dinner on the pier at Bubba Gump (Forrest Gump movie) - yummy.

As we did in New York - jumped on on of the open top sightseeing buses that toured around the touristy stuff and listened to the history of the area. The bus travelled along the Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset Ave and then the Sunset Strip, Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. You can hop of and on these buses which we did at the Hollywood Farmers Market. As soon as we were off the bus Sophie saw one of the teachers from her dance school. We new they were travelling as a group and would be in LA but it was a bit freaky bumping into them. After a catch up we grabbed some lunch at one of the eateries, a French food cafe. Yummy, escargot and lamb sausages with a glass of beaujolais.

After lunch we caught Zthe next tourist bus back towards the tour end. We jumped off at the start of the Walk of Fame and wandered the mile back to our car. Hmmm, not sure about Hollywood.

For dinner we went to one of Linda's US colleagues, Marie for dinner. Marie lives up in the Santa Monica Hills above Malibu; up is UP, as it is very steep and winding 3 miles to Marie's beautiful house. It was about 40 min in peak hour traffic from our apartment at Venice. Marie's house has been rebuilt because she lost the original house in the 2007 wildfires.

Tomorrow we'll start thread trip.

 

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