Los Angeles is another divisive city, like Las Vegas. You either love it or hate it. I am leaning a bit towards the hate it part, because it is too big, too spread out, and the public transport is abysmal. Getting anywhere takes way too long and once you’re there it’s all a bit…anticlimactic really.
That’s just how I feel.
Before I went to San Diego I was debating where to stay longer, San Diego or Los Angeles, and I’m glad I listened to everyone who said I should stay longer in San Diego.
Now that’s not to say that I didn’t have fun while I was in Los Angeles, but that was mostly because of the people I met at the hostel. There wasn’t really any moment at all that I went somewhere by myself and we had fun.
Hollywood
Hollywood is a ghetto. Even though the Walk of Fame is there, there is no glamor to be found at all. I knew this going in, after having talked with a great many people throughout my trip through the United States. You may think, how bad could it be? Well, it wasn’t quite Vegas no-man’s land, but it wasn’t good either. So, fair warning.
The Walk of Fame is a must see though, and it’s pretty nice to walk along all the stars on the ground (as long as there is daylight) – there are even stars for cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny. The best part of the Walk of Fame is at the Chinese Theater, where a number of famous people put their signatures, handprints and footprints in concrete, with among them Michael Jackson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Pretty close to the Walk of Fame is Runyon Canyon, which is a great place to hike a bit. You see a lot of locals there exercising. After a little climb up the steep slopes you have a great view of Los Angeles and the Hollywood sign. I did the hostel hike on the last day that I was there, but maybe I should have gone sooner and walked there more often…ah, who am I kidding, I didn’t have time for any repeat trips anywhere. But if I did have time, I would have walked there some more I think. Or fled the city, one or the other.
Another good place to see the Hollywood sign from is the Griffith Observatory, though getting to the observatory takes a while, even by bus. That’s basically LA though, everything is far away. When we were at the observatory we also had a great view of LA, as well as the clouds of smog that hung over it. The observatory has some nice displays of the galaxy and stargazing, including the old telescopes from the heyday of the observatory. Originally I had planned to hike to the actual sign, but it was so warm out that it would have been irresponsible, so I opted not to do that.
Beaches
From Hollywood the beaches are about 45 minutes away by car and about 1 hour 45 minutes by their public transport system of bus, metro, metro. Fortunately the hostel had a shuttle to take people there, but for the way back we had to use the public transport. I can’t reiterate enough how annoying it is that everything is so spread out in Los Angeles. You want to go to the beach? Fine, but it takes a day. You want to go to the Hollywood sign? Takes a day. Beverly Hills? Takes a day.
We started at Santa Monica beach, near the pier where the historical route 66 ends. Great photo opportunities and really nice beaches. Of the beaches we saw that day I liked Santa Monica best.
Moving along the beach we went to Venice beach next and you know exactly when you reach Venice – it’s when the makeshift ‘homes’ of the homeless appear and everything turns a bit grungy and dingy. The beach itself is still fine though, it’s just the boardwalk that is a bit iffy. Here we also ticked off one item of my to-do list, which was swim in the Pacific Ocean. All though it can’t really be called swimming when the tide picks you up, slams you back into the beach, drags you back in and proceeds to slam you right back down again. It was fun though, I haven’t laughed out loud so much in quite a while.
Further along Venice Beach you’ll come across a small gym area: Muscle Beach, where Arnold Schwarzenegger used to train. Though I think he trained at the old Muscle Beach, as the gym has moved since. There were some guys there training and damn, what those guys do can’t be good for you – so much muscle is unnatural.
There was also a skate park on the beach. A couple of the skateboarders were quite good.
In all the beaches were a good day trip, but I’m glad I decided not to stay in a hostel there. After one day you’ve seen it and you can reach a hell of a lot more from Hollywood than the beach.
Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills is exactly what I thought it would be, large mansions and lots of green. You can’t really see a lot of the houses here through the high fences and hedges erected as barriers against paparazzi, but what you can see is very impressive. We’d walk past huge gates and those would only be the service entrances of the properties. Madness.
Interestingly you won’t find a lot of sidewalks in Beverly Hills, since the folks who live there reason that everyone who’s there is rich enough not to need to walk. It really is a totally different world.
Close to Beverly Hills is Rodeo Drive, the famous shopping street. All the major brands are there, sometimes with more than one shop (they must be doing very well). As I’m not really into fashion shopping it was enough to walk through it once, but if you are interested it’s a great place to spend some time. It’s completely unaffordable, unless you find a sale somewhere.
