Surfin' USA

Our final two days of travelling saw us decamp from the crazy world of Hollywood...and move to the even crazier world of Venice Beach and the surf beaches of California. We had reserved a room in a beach side hotel at Marina Del Rey, about 10 minutes walk from Venice Beach boardwalk. This area was quite affluent and the harbour is the largest small boat harbour in the world with capacity for around 6000 boats. As far as the eye could see were moorings with pleasure yachts and small boats of various types and sizes.

Marina Del Rey harbour

After checking in our bags at the hotel we decided to walk to the beach itself, firstly stopping at a colourful restaurant for a light snack. 

Mrs B wondering if I'd ever finish my pancakes....

Mrs B. had a slice of carrot cake whilst I ordered blueberry pancakes with fruit, buttermilk and maple syrup thinking this wouldn't be too filling. I had temporarily forgotten about US portions - but was reminded they could be somewhat generous...when two dinner plate sized pancakes appeared in front of me together with mountains of fruit. Suffice to say I didn't feel hungry for quite some time!

After this mountain of food we carried on walking along the Venice Boardwalk. Venice Beach has been a surfing centre for some time but the area was also established in the 1960's as a centre for hippie counter cultural activity. Although partly gentrified the area still has plenty of alternative life stylers, street performers, fortune tellers, artists and a range of weird, wonderful or just downright crazy exhibitionists.

Venice Beach from the Boardwalk.

Marijuana 'doctors' just past the ice cream stall

Venice Boardwalk

One of the crazier street performers...

Our walk took us past past all of the weirdness - and took Mrs B. out of her comfort zone. In LA medical marijuana is legal, and there were a range of Green Doctors mixed in with the other stalls attempting to entice people in for a consultation...in exchange for $40.00. Neither of us felt we needed any medical advice - and a fresh lemonade was much cheaper anyway!

After about a mile we went down onto the long sandy beach with the Pacific surf crashing down and walked along the shore watching swimmers and surfers.

Venice Beach looking towards Santa Monica

Returning to the boardwalk we came across two large street murals by a Californian pop artist, Rip Cronk. The first, called Homage to A Starry Knight, is an affectionate pastiche of Van Gogh whilst the second included the artist himself appearing to hang from the side of a building.

Homage To A Starry Knight

'Venice'

We decided that we'd had enough craziness for the day and headed back to the calm of our hotel and to search for a place to eat, for our penultimate evening meal.

Beach side setting of our hotel

A nice quiet and peaceful evening was planned and after a meal we retired to our spacious hotel room to pack our bags, read, watch a bit of TV and generally chill out. At 9.10 pm Mrs B. was dozing when there was a tremendous rumbling sound and the room started shaking. It lasted for about 20 seconds. Such was the noise and movement I immediately realised we'd experienced an earthquake....and it wasn't Mrs B. snoring. Switching on the TV confirmed there had been a 5.1 earthquake and the epicentre wasn't that far away. In earthquake terms 5.1 is moderate..but there had been some minor damage. Fortunately no one was harmed by it. It seemed ironic that we'd left New Zealand without experiencing a single tremor in more than 2 months of traveling and then arriving in LA we'd experienced their strongest earthquake for about 20 years after only 3 days. 

Our final day dawned and having finished our packing we set off to find somewhere to have breakfast. Just around the corner was Joni's Coffee shop, clearly popular with the locals. It was a Sunday morning and it was packed but we found a table ordered coffees and breakfast. Once again the portions were epic. A mushroom and spinach omelette, complete with fried potatoes and toast was enough to feed a family. It was just my order. 

Now you may have wondered why an area of Los Angeles is called Venice. It's all down to the vision of an early 20th century property developer, Abbot Kinney who was fascinated with the Italian city of that name and decided to develop the area and build canals of his own. He constructed his own version of Venice in 1905 but over time many of the canals fell into disuse and by the late 1920's most had been filled in and tarmaced over. Some survived and in 1992 they were completely restored. After our filling breakfast we felt the need for some exercise and went to see the canals. Only a block or two away from Venice boardwalk they are little oasis's of calm. Flanked by low rise homes in different architectural styles the compact area has narrow walkways flanking the canals making for a very relaxing walk.

The Venice Canals...and a Californian gondolier!

Our flight out from LAX wasn't scheduled until late evening so we stored our bags at the hotel and set off to see a bit more of Venice on our last day. 

Working our way through the streets we found our way to Abbot Kinney Boulevard. This street is choc full of designers, art and craft shops as well as hip restaurants, bars and cafes. 

Classic Americana

Abbot Kinney Boulevard

After a leisurely stroll and a stop for a delicious mint lemonade and apple/cinnamon cake we arrived back on the boardwalk. With lots of time we decided to carry on walking and headed towards Santa Monica content to let the skateboarders, cyclists, Segway users and roller bladers wizz past whilst on the beach the sunbathers and surfers were out in force. 

Eventually we reached Santa Monica pier. This is over 100 years old and was a typical seaside pier with fairground rides and amusements. I spotted a police car on the pier, complete with surf board.

Only in California...

The pier was bustling with people and colourful. Walking out towards the end gave stunning views in both directions. Santa Monica beach was to the north and back to the south was Venice Beach both full of people enjoying the Californian surfer lifestyle.

The view back to Venice Beach from Santa Monica Pier

Santa Monica Beach

I hadn't realised the pier was also the end (or start) of Route 66 until seeing a large sign advertising this. It prompted thoughts of another road trip...

Without really realising we'd walked more than 4 miles, soaking up the sun and enjoying our last few hours before the time came to complete the last leg of our round the world trip. We headed back towards our hotel by a slightly different route passing Santa Monica City Hall which was a lovely building and then, on Ocean Avenue, the Hotel California! 

Santa Monica City Hall

You can check in here...not sure if you can leave though.

I somehow managed to lose Mrs B. as we walked back along Venice Beach (this wasn't deliberate) but we managed to find each other at the end of the boardwalk. Our final meal was at an LA restaurant chain called the Cheesecake Factory located close to our hotel. The food was tasty but again the portions were huge. I opted for a light herb crusted salmon salad thinking it wouldn't be too filling. Wrong again! We shared a portion of their cheesecake but perhaps by this time my taste buds were a bit jaded as I didn't think it was anything special. After settling the bill we returned to collect our bags, ordered a taxi and set off for the airport. We checked into our flight with Virgin Atlantic which was overnight and we got good seats so managed to doze during a long but thankfully turbulence free flight across the Atlantic. We arrived at Heathrow on time and it was lovely to see the two smiling faces of our wonderful daughters, Helen and Sarah, who had come to collect us. This was especially nice for Mrs B. as we'd landed on Mothers Day. Sarah drove us all back home managing to squeeze everyone and everything into her tiny Nissan Micra (called Ethel) - a marvel - it must somehow distort space/time. 


And so our travels were over. In 3 months we'd left one continent and visited three others, experienced different cultures and gained memories to last a lifetime. We had spent no more than 4 nights in any one place (and that was only once) and had embraced a nomadic lifestyle. There was always something interesting, exciting and new around the next bend in the road. The welcome we received and sometimes unexpected kindness offered by strangers, who were so willing to share the beauty of their countries, made our travels so much more immersive and fulfilling than if we'd been passive travellers. 

Only one question remains to be answered: Where to next?

Seeing Stars in Hollywood

It took about 14 hours to cross the Pacific Ocean, traveling from Christchurch to Auckland and then on to Los Angeles. We checked in our luggage at Christchurch airport at 5.00pm and because of time zones manage to arrive in Los Angeles on the same day...but two hours before we'd set off! 

Its fair to say the flight wasn't comfortable. The turbulence was almost constant and the captain told passengers he'd flown the route for many years and that was the worst he'd experienced! Having arrived in Los Angeles I was dreading long queues through US immigration but to my surprise we were whisked through in minutes and the immigration officer was quite chatty and friendly.

As a result of the long flight and very little sleep we hoped to get our pre-booked shuttle quickly to take us to our apartment. Los Angeles is a vast city and our apartment was in Hollywood which is about 13 miles from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). After a wait of around 25 minutes the shuttle bus arrived. We realised quite soon into our journey that our 'Super Shuttle' driver was probably mad. LAX is a big airport and quite reasonably he stopped at different terminals but only picked up one other passenger. After the last terminal we thought great, we'll be on our way now..but he took all three of us back to where we'd started. Eventually he set off...and did another tour of the terminals...and guess what. We returned to the start again. This was getting both puzzling and annoying. He also didn't acknowledge any questions. He eventually did set off but didn't use his seatbelt which meant the warning light was on on the dashboard and the pinging sound was constant. He also talked to himself constantly but once more refused to answer any questions from us. He also tried to drop us off about 100 meters from our apartment. Despite tipping being customary in the US needless to say he didn't get one from us!

To compensate our apartment was lovely. An old Hollywood building, about 5 minutes walk from one end of Hollywood Boulevard and with shops and restaurants nearby it was very comfortable and decorated to a good standard. After a brief shopping expedition to a wonderful and surprisingly ethical supermarket called Trader Joe's we crashed out and slept for about 12 hours.

Inside our apartment

Our Hollywood Apartment from the outside

Inside Trader Joe's supermarket

Feeling refreshed the next morning we set off to discover Hollywood. We we only minutes walk away from a famous junction, the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine as this marks one end of the famous 'walk of fame' where famous stars of film or music have had their names set into the pavement. As a result of this we spent some time gazing downwards and deduced that the arrangement of names set in the pavement was completely random. Modern movies actors were next to silent movie era stars and some people we'd never even heard of. How quickly fame fades!

One of the stars of the walk of fame who you might have heard of...

Lifting our gaze upwards we could see the Capitol Records building, appropriately shaped like a stack of old vinyl records. Younger readers may need to consult Wikipedia at this point...

The Capitol Records Building

Hollywood Boulevard is a long road. In fact this is true of most roads in Los Angeles.We started to walk along, following the stars as it were...and noted how shabby and slightly seedy this end of Hollywood was. Tattooists, 'smoke shops' and very cheap souvenir shops together with fast food places, bars and clubs were not exactly conveying an aura of Hollywood glamour.As we got further along the street became a bit smarter. We passed Sid Grauman's Egyptian Theatre built in 1922 and location of the first Hollywood film premiere.

Grauman's Egyptian Theatre

Beyond this were a number of  tourist attractions, famous hotels and the Dolby Theatre, part of the Hollywood and Highland complex, where the Oscars are held each year. A little further on was Grauman's Chinese Theatre, a Hollywood landmark. 

Hollywood Boulevard

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

The Dolby Theatre

 

We were constantly invited by ticket sellers to book a tour to see the movie stars homes but perfected the art of ignoring their persistent sales approaches as we had no particular interest in seeing movie star homes. Instead we booked tickets for a 17.5 mile loop hop on, hop off open top bus as this would make it possible to see other parts of Los Angeles without using public transport. The car culture is dominant in LA resulting in gridlock much of the time and the public transport is cheap but not particularly well integrated. We hopped on the bus and it took us slowly along Sunset Boulevard, passing famous clubs, 'The Viper Room' and 'Whisky A Go Go' where many well known rock bands have played. We passed through Beverley Hills and hopped off the bus at The Farmers Market. This market was established in the 1920's to enable Californian farmers to bring their produce direct to consumers and it still sells fresh fruit and food. 

Outside the Farmers Market..

...and inside the Farmers Market

We liked the ambiance and sampled some of the food - firstly a coffee and doughnut from Bob's Coffee & Doughnuts'..stereotypically American..and really tasty if not exactly a 'five a day' eating choice...followed by a hamburger...the latter did include lettuce and tomatoes...but I can't claim it was a healthy lunch menu!

The tempting goodies in Bob's Coffee & Doughnuts

After walking around the adjacent modern shopping area and cinema complex called the Grove and a bit of confusion about where to hop back on the bus (they had temporarily relocated the bus stop) we eventually caught a bus and continued our tour passing CBS Studios, along Melrose Avenue and took in the street scenes with the multitude of advertising signs, brightly coloured shops and traffic chaos.

Not Los Pollos Hermanos!

 We hopped off and on to make a brief visit to the 'Rock Walk' where many famous rock musicians have had their hand prints set in concrete before we alighted once more in Beverley Hills and walked down the most expensive shopping street, Rodeo Drive. It was full of designer labels and was clean but appeared very corporate so I'm afraid didn't do much for me. I did however like the art deco architecture of Beverley Hills City Hall which we walked through when returning to the bus stop and Mrs B. was quite taken with a sculpture in the courtyard.

Mrs B. eyeing up a piece of art in Beverley Hills and wondering if it will fit in her luggage

We ended our first day in a restaurant called Tender Greens, an ethical company that had an organic salad based menu (and very tasty food)....we needed to counteract the lunchtime fast food excesses! A short walk in the dark gave us a taste of the lights of Hollywood but having walked a good few miles we were content to have an early night.

The junction of Hollywood and Vine at night

Some internet research had revealed we could use a local bus to get a bit closer to Griffith Park, so this is what we did the next morning. For 50 cents each we were taken through a predominantly Spanish speaking area and got off the bus a block or two away from Griffith Park itself. Griffith J. Griffith (his parents presumably weren't very imaginative when it came to choosing a first name) was a Welshman who emigrated to the US in 1865. He was a very successful businessman and donated land to create a park for the citizens of Los Angeles. Rising into the Hollywood Hills, the 3000 acre park has both green landscaped area and, as it gets higher, semi desert. Griffith J. Griffith was also passionate about astronomy and wanted to make it accessible to the public. He is quoted as having said "If all mankind could look through that telescope, it would change the world!" To achieve his vision he financed the construction of the Griffith Observatory but sadly didn't live to see it completed.

Our walk involved a stiff climb through the park and after just over a mile and a half we arrived at the Observatory.

 

 

LA from the Griffith Observatory

After recovering from the climb we explored the grounds and the observatory itself. There was a bust of James Dean ('Rebel Without A Cause' was filmed on location) and terrific views of the iconic Hollywood sign and the rest of Los Angeles. Inside the observatory was a revelation. The beautifully restored art deco building contained a wealth of interesting exhibits, films and images - all free to view. We'd only intended a short visit but ended up staying for hours, watching a film about the building's history in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theatre (presented by Spock himself) and paid $7.00 each for a simply amazing planetarium show called 'Centred in the Universe'. There were displays on our solar system and the universe, a Foucault Pendulum and the largest astronomically accurate image ever made called the Big Picture. 

Inside the observatory

Great minds...

The ceiling of the entrance, Griffith Observatory

It was a wrench to leave the observatory but eventually we did and walked back downhill and after 2 miles caught a one stop Metro ride to the Hollywood and Vine station. This subway station was pure Hollywood. The ceiling was decorated in old film canisters and a movie theme ran throughout right to the exit on Hollywood Boulevard opposite the historic Plantages Theatre - another art deco building.

Walking along once more to the Chinese Theatre we had a closer look at the movie stars hand and footprints set in concrete on the pavement. The area was filled with tourists and largely unconvincing lookalikes who would for a tip, pose for photos. I wasn't prepared to part with any money but managed a sneaky photo of Batman...who by my reckoning should be in Gotham City! Mrs B was happy enough to place herself on top of George Clooney as it were....

Mrs B. getting close to George

After a bit more exploring we escaped the madness and prepared to move on. We'd got a couple more days left in LA before our flight home and it was time to go to the beach.