City Of Angels

After breaky on the balcony, we were off initially to the Hollywood Bowl, but it took me by surprise that it was 24 miles away, it still hasn't sunk in how vast Los Angeles is, so I just googled, 44 miles north to south, 29 east to west, eek. But there are roads in every direction, we ended up on a 6 lane wide highway for only our direction and it's impossible to navigate without google maps really. Anyway, we changed our priorities as we approached the J. Paul Getty Museum...

The museum is on a hill overlooking LA, it's free entry, car parking $20... a tram takes you up the hill to an array of buildings... right what did we want to see... Irises by Van Gogh, everyone wants to see that, sold for $54m in 1987... but we started going through the galleries hoping to only spend an hour or so, but 90 mins later stil going.... it was impossible to stop really. But we reached the highlights, then the gardens, then the photography exhibits, then the cafe for lunch. We were there about 3 hours, and I reckon it was the star attraction for us.

We had a date for sunset at Griffiths Park, but it was an hour away, had a wee peek at the Hollywood Bowl as we passed it, parked for free at the foot of the park and got the free bus up to the Observatory. We'd been here yesterday, so knew the drill... photos of the Hollywood sign, then the sunset, then into the dome theatre there to watch a film about the solar system... came out, city all lit up in the dark, airplanes circling LAX, oh there's another show, back in the theatre for Signs Of Life... both were narrated live by someone who was just perfect, we were impressed, he should be in the movies, he probably has been. Watched the Tesla Coil light up and back on the free bus to drive to Venice Beach for dinner... an hour away, sheesh, is this city vast or what, oops said that bit... it was after 9pm, dinner options were limited, ok, back to the Library Alehouse, yay, even got the same table as last night!

Our last night in LA, didn't get to see all we wanted today, but tomorrow is busy up to our flight in the evening so more to see, and more miles to drive.

Incidently, we wanted to see the Brea Tar Pits, in the middle of the city. where tar/oil oozes from the ground... 10,000s of years ago animals would get stuck in the tar, and other animals would come to prey on/eat them, who would then get stuck themselves, repeat, repeat... it sounds horrendous... anyway more than 1 million bones have been found covering 231 species, 1 human apparently. Ah well... next time...