The City of Angels

Yesterday, after a pleasant and relaxing day in the Santa Barbara wine country, I drove the rest of the Pacific Coast Highway and arrived in Los Angeles. The route left Santa Barbara, passing through several upmarket suburbs and then through the larger city of Santa Buenaventura (normally just called Ventura, even on maps) before getting back to the coast. Once again reaching rugged, mountainous terrain, this time of the Santa Monica mountains, the road this time was far less winding or hilly, and much wider. You could definitely already tell I was getting toward a major built up area by the level of traffic as well, a lot more than I would have normally expected from this type of highway. Soon the road reached Malibu, a city for which the sign stated a population of 13,000, so you might expect something small. However, it was a long, sprawling area of contiguous housing – massive hillside mansions with impressive landscape gardens that must have stretched more than 20 miles along the coast.

Santa Monica Beach

Finally I reached Los Angeles itself, entering the city from the northwest straight in to Santa Monica. I decided I might as well see this part since I was there, so drove down toward the beach to park. The Santa Monica area itself didn’t seem to have a whole lot to it besides the beach area which had a pier with amusements on it, in many ways feeling like the smaller brother of the boardwalk at Santa Cruz. I decide to take a walk along the beach, which was a massively wide strip of golden sand all the way along the coast, dotted with Baywatch-esque lifeguard stations and also equipped with volleyball nets and an array of gymnastics equipment.

After some time walking, I found myself suddenly at Venice Beach, the next one along from Santa Monica. This place turned out to be very cool indeed – a highly alternative area, crammed with hippie stalls selling art, incense, clothing and so on, a lot of street musicians playing whatever they wanted, and generally weird-looking people walking along the promenade. The frontage behind the beach itself looked in a way run down, but there was no mistaking the vibrant spirit of the place. After a little while wandering along the stalls and people watching, I headed back to my car – my 2 hour parking time was going to run out!

Walk of Fame

From Santa Monica I decided my next stop would be Hollywood, and so I consulted my map to work out how best to get there. I planned out a route, and noted it was a few miles away, then set off. I immediately came to pretty heavy traffic, and found that pretty much the entire route was a series of intersections, every one of which had a queue and a red light. This is something of a theme for LA it turns out – if your route doesn’t go along one of the freeways (and even if it does at certain times of the day), it will take you a looooooooong time to get anywere. Combine this with the fact that a lot of drivers here seem to be nuts and have no concept of  lane discipline and you have an interesting driving experience, I would say at least as bad as London at the worst of times. Eventually I did get to Hollywood and managed to check in to a motel just a block from the main attractions.

Kodak Theatre

It was toward the end of the afternoon by this point, but I still had time to stroll along the Walk of Fame and check out all the stars (there were more than I expected) and see the most famous theatres along Hollywood Blvd, such as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre with its space out the front where many famous actors from the last 70 years have left imprints of their hands and feet in the cement (Emma Watson has tiny feet, Will Smith has very big feet), and the Kodak Theatre, current home of the Academy Awards. The Kodak Theatre also had, behind/next to it, a nice mall with a few shops, bars and restaurants, that was at the same time quite pleasantly designed, and slightly Hollywood-ridiculous with a massive triumphal arch at the back framing views of the Hollywood Sign in the distance.

I began today by returning to Hollywood Blvd in the morning and going to the Hollywood Museum, which is located in the old Max Factor building, which is in itself something of a historical landmark in this area. Inside the museum was a large collection of sets, props, costumes, and makeup from a wide range of films over the whole history of American movies. They had Indiana Jones’ jacket from The Temple of Doom, an ape costume from Planet of the Apes, dancer costumes from Moulin Rouge, and, rather chillingly, the whole set of the corridor and cells that contained Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, among many other things. It was quite fun to see it all, a lot of general costumes and props from films I like, as well as many many exhibits about some of the most famous films in history.

La Brea Tar Lake

From there I drove south a few blocks to the La Brea Tar Pits. These very bizarre pits have been the site of asphalt bubbling up from below the earth for at least 40,000 years, and have yielded some incredible fossils. The pits themselves are still active dig sites, and you could have a good look at one (unfortunately noone was digging while I was there), and the large tar lake was still bubbling away in a slow but strange way, with the faint smell of creosote hanging in the air. There were also small holes in the ground in a few places with fresh liquid tar on the surface, which was a really quite odd thing to see. Next to the pits is the Page Museum, which houses most of the fossils found and it did have some amazing specimens. Most impressive were probably the very intricate and well preserved bird skeletons of various now extinct species of bird of prey, and the wall of over 400 wolf skulls – researchers believe entire packs of wolves will have been trapped at the same time all trying to attack an animal already stuck and sinking itself.

Next, I drove back north a couple of blocks to the famous Sunset Blvd, which I then drove all the way down, through the most famous night spots and hotels. It would have been nice to see it on foot, but really in this city of autos quite impractical. Things are so far apart that walking is really a nightmare, and while parking is actually pretty cheap when you find it, there seem to be many car parks in some places, then a large gap before the next one, sort of like London buses. I did get a pretty good view at the place which in daytime appeared pretty drab really, though the many neon signs must improve it at night. Soon the nightclubs gave way to Beverley Hills, which is every bit as attractive and mansion-filled as all the stereotypes suggest. I didn’t actually go down any side streets and seek out any particular stars’ homes as I thought that would be pretty sad, but I did get a good look at a few mansions.

Courtyard at the Getty Centre

More heavy traffic later I got to the edge of town and, passing under the freeway, reached the Getty Centre. This billion-dollar construction of white stone, glass, fountains and gardens sits on the top of a hill overlooking the city and houses a large collection of art of all kinds. I spent some time going around the galleries, and then a little while enjoying the views of the city and admiring the gardens. It’s quite remarkable but the entire place is free to enter (though parking does cost $10), and is even an automated tram ride from the car park.

It was now getting late and the centre was closing, so I departed and headed back in to town. Before going back for some dinner I headed briefly up the hills north of Hollywood (after ages stuck in rush hour traffic) to the park and climbed to the top of the hill for a decent view of the Hollywood Sign in the sunset, after which I dropped my car off at the motel and found a bar to grab some food and a drink in the heart of Tinseltown.

Hollywood Sign at sunset