Los Angeles

After my hearty and filling pancake breakfast I set off to visit the first of my three destinations.

The Getty Center

The Getty Center. I was a bit wary since the bulk of it is a museum and I tend to have the attention span of a butterfly overdosed on caffeine in museums but it turned out quite different.

First of all, the Getty Center is awesome; it's located on the top of a mountain and you have to take a little tram to reach the top. The Getty Center itself is an impressive building, snow white against a blue sky and offering an impressive vantage point of the surrounding area.

Also, that day they just opened the exhibition of illuminated manuscripts from the Belles Heures du Duc de Berry. The illustrations of this famous book of hours are well preserved and are impressive both in colours and in the filigreed details of the illustrations themselves.

Also running was a exhibition on Carleton Watkins, an American 19th century photographer which offered some interesting pictures.

The garden of the Getty Center is a little jewel which complements the almost stark geometrical Center; a variety of contrasting plants, some horticultural sculptures and little lanes running through it all. All in all, I spent more time there than I expected.

The Walk of Fame

This one was a little harsher. The neighbourhood of the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard near Vine Street has a rough and almost shabby feel to it. I walked around for 30 minutes, snapping the occasional star. In stark contrast with the immortalized names of stars on the sidewalk there were beggars and homeless people shuffling around and rooting in trash cans. I quickly moved on.

Griffith Park Observatory

Griffith Park takes its name after Colonel Griffith J. Griffith (he really wanted to make sure). My main interest was the Observatory which looks out on entire LA and the Hollywood bill board. Since it was running towards 16:00 I also wanted to catch the sunset from up there.

The sunset here doesn't waste time; in less than 5-10 minutes after touching the horizon, the sun is gone.

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