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Published: April 13th 2024
Dear All
Yay! California, here I am! I write at the beginning of another two-week adventure through one of my favourite countries - the US of A! This trip was actually four years in the planning, as along with South Africa last summer, this one was also delayed from four years ago due to the world having gone crazy at the time. For my first US trip after that time, I wanted to go to the closest US place to the UK as I could, just in case, and thus I did New England over Easter 2022. And last year I just had to visit my TB friends Merry Jo and Dave for a wonderful time in Florida over Easter 2023. So this year, Easter 2024, I began California!
The flight over was good, if a little long. Eleven hours on a daytime flight certainly drags! I watched two films to get me in the California mood, Die Hard and Charlie's Angels, and managed to get a two-seater by the window, all to myself, and right at the back of the plane - my favourite place! The passengers were cool and calm, and it was a pleasant flight with
Los Angeles
View from Griffith Observatoryplenty of food and drink provided by the excellent service I find from British Airways. There were just incredible views from the window as the plane flew over snow-bound Iceland and Greenland, the Arctic sea ice off northern Canada, Baffin Bay, the northern US plains and the southern US deserts. And flying into LAX was just awesome. The urban area began straight out of the desert to the east, a whopping 60 miles out of the city centre! This is a city with one huge urban sprawl! I had clear views of the skyscrapers of Downtown LA, and even the Hollywood sign was just visible in the very far distance!
Passport control there took ages though - 80 minutes in total! And the US Border Security were their usual less-than-welcoming selves. I took a bus from my terminal to the Airport's Metro station, and then took an LA Metro to the end of the C-Line at Redondo Beach station. It was a mile walk from there to my accommodation - a classic, US-style old school motel! It was perfect! As I headed off to bed, I was hoping the seven-hour time difference wouldn't pose too many problems with jet-lag.
As it turned out, I felt it a bit for my days in LA, but after leaving the city I got back to right again - or maybe it was the LA smog, who knows...?!
The next day was my first full day on this trip, and I spent it, of course, in and around legendary Hollywood. While there is a lot to see in Los Angeles, and I did have to narrow my choices down somewhat, I had to visit quintessential LA first. This place has been etched into my mind since childhood, and its products have filled my imagination and inspired much of what I wanted to see on this day today. While my motel was relatively handy for LAX Airport and my car rental pick up a few days later, it was about an hour-and-a-half away from Hollywood by Metro, that is after my 20-minute walk to the Metro station. LA is certainly one sizeable, spread-out city! Still, it was a fascinating journey through the, rather dodgy, southern suburbs of town through notorious "South Central LA", and was very much an insight into the working life of the city from the Greyhound bus type of passengers
(mostly loons, let's be honest). It also gave me the chance to sort out my photos and write up my travel blog notes on the way back again from my visits each day.
From the B-Line's Vermont/Sunset station, there was a short, and free, bus journey up to the famous Griffith Observatory. I was told by many sources that this was the best place to view the Hollywood sign from, and the place has also been etched into my mind as the place where The Terminator acquired his first clothes, including sunglasses - a legendary scene! And the sources were right, there were great views of the Hollywood sign from up there. There were also incredible views of the urban sprawl of LA down below, stretching far out into the distance as far as the eye could see. To the right was the Pacific Ocean and to the left, the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains. The view was just awesome.
From the top, I took a lovely mile-and-a-half walk through Griffith Park and down onto the very Hollywood Boulevard itself. I had a lunch of chicken noodle soup at a local posh supermarket full of all kinds of health
Reykjavik and Iceland
Flight from LHR to LAX and organic food, from where it was another short hop two stops along the Metro to the centre of Tinseltown itself, around Hollywood/Highland station. I was so excited to be there, and it did feel strange that just the morning before I was in Croydon, and now I was in Hollywood!! There was the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame, stretching 1.3 miles in total to the east and west from there, the very famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and equally famous Dolby Theatre nearby. The former was one of the original locations of the Oscars, for only three years from 1944 to 1946, and is also the location of many Hollywood movie premieres, the latter has hosted the Oscars since 2001. I took a few photos of some of my favourite stars' stars, including Mickey Mouse and Peter Jackson, before meeting up with a tour that I'd booked for that afternoon.
Although I really did feel quite awkward doing it, I'd booked myself on to one of the many Celebrity Homes tours! My main interest in doing this, rather than stalking celebrities which made me feel quite uncomfortable, was to take a guided driving tour through the Hollywood Hills, Beverly
Hills and Bel-Air areas. There were plenty of other cheaper tours I could have booked, but this seemed to be the only one to explore all three of these localities, which I very much wanted. While the tour can take up to five people, I was actually the only one booked on this one, so it was like a three-hour private limousine-tour of America's most famous neighbourhoods for me. Along with a serious host of stars' houses, Rick the guide also takes special requests. I asked to see the Beverly Hillbillies' and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's mansions, being two of my favourite TV programmes, but it turns out neither of these were filmed in these places! I also requested a photo stop at a Mulholland Drive sign, since I also have this film etched in my memory, but unfortunately he forgot about this, which he profusely apologised for and I was fine with. We did spend a lot of our time driving along this very famous road however. Finally, and perhaps rather morbidly, I requested to visit Cielo Drive, location of some of the infamous Manson Family murders. This was actually due to my recent watching of the excellent
Sea Ice off Greenland
Flight from LHR to LAX "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" film, with its refreshingly heart-warming, very surprising and at the same time darkly morbid finale. I got to see the road which Brad Pitt walked his dog along at the end. I think the reader may have to watch this film to understand the meaning of all of this.
We did get to see plenty of celebrity homes, and while I took photos of many of them, I can't for the life of me remember which one belongs to who! A particular house of note for me was a UFO-shaped building which was apparently the inspiration for the house in Charlie's Angels, in which Drew Barrymore was shot out of! Celebrity house spots included those belonging either presently or previously to Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Winona Ryder, Leonardo DiCaprio, his friend Toby Maguire, Katy Perry, Jay-Z and Beyonce, and countless others. We also spotted Hollywood director Kevin Smith just entering his house, who actually looked at me as we drove past (I seriously felt so awkward...). We also saw who we suspected to be Charlize Theron driving into her house, having seen her two children in the back and just simply assuming it
Greenland
Flight from LHR to LAX was the actress herself driving the car. Again, I didn't feel comfortable spying on people like this, and was actually glad not to have seen any more famous people, interrupting them on their daily lives by gawking at them.
We also drove along the famous Sunset Boulevard with its Viper Lounge and Comedy Club, and the Beverly Hills Hotel, featured on the front cover of The Eagles' single "Hotel California". This sighting was special to me, as this song was currently one of the many California-related songs that were on my playlist and in my head during this trip. I also think I understand the meaning of the song now, but still I may be wrong...!
The Hollywood Hills houses seemed cute, quaint and cottage-like, and the roads curvy and steep. As we drove into the Beverly Hills part of the tour, there featured more tree-lined, trimmed-lawn straight roads, with notable platinum-coloured fire hydrants. After this, Bel-Air was filled with the most expensive and hidden mansions of all three, giving it a very secretive feel. I really enjoyed this personalised three-hour tour, and highly recommend it to anyone reading this - "Movie Star Home Tours" if anyone's interested,
Baffin Bay
Los Angeles run by highly knowledgeable and incredibly humorous Rick. He kept me highly entertained, and made me laugh out loud numerous times!
After dropping me back off on Hollywood Boulevard again, I spent the next hour or so taking in the many celebrity hand- and feet-prints in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and the countless celebrity stars running along the Walk of Fame. I took photos of my favourite prints and stars, uploaded here. I walked this as far as the next Metro station, Hollywood/Vine, and noted that the area became noticeably dodgier as I headed further east. It was good to have one eye on the people around me, with the other one doing the star-spotting. I didn't expect it to feel so dodgy.
The Metro ride back to my motel again was long, but as mentioned I got caught up with my photos and travel blog notes, so a win there!
I will write up about my next two full days in Los Angeles in my next one. Until then, thanks for reading, and all the best for now!
Alex
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
That's why they call it Hollywood!
Dave here.....looks like you hit the tourist motherlode on this day. Lot's to see and do and you made the most of ti!