LOS ANGELES

HOLLYWOOD - SANTA MONICA - VENICE BEACH

Our first days in Los Angeles were spent in Hollywood where we stayed on Sunset Boulevard. We settled in then walked about 300 metres up to Hollywood Boulevard and found ourselves joining the crowds waiting for the stars to arrive and walk the red carpet into the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre for the premiere of ‘The Expendables’ .

The fans gather waiting for the stars to arrive.

The road is full of black suits then the black cars arrive and out the stars get to sign some autographs before they head off down the red carpet into the theatre.

Next morning we are up early and down to look around before the crowds arrive.

They soon gather and I tried a spot of Twisting with Little Richard .

There are stars that I am sure we are the only ones here who have ever heard of them.

And some more modern stars.

This one is waiting for our Producer grandson.

We strolled along to the Graumans Chinese theatre where the red carpet was still in place and looked at the famous hand and footprints of the stars. Tom Mix the cowboy in 1927, Shirley Temple in ‘35, Mel Gibson in ‘93, Hugh Jackman in ’07 along with many more. This part of Hollywood really reminds us of the stars but away from the main streets it is pretty ordinary.

 

This is one of the famous John Wayne. I am not sure if his feet were very small or Kevin’s are very big!!

Marilyn was here giving away kisses.



On the way home this afternoon we see the theatre red carpet is set up for the Premiere of Sparkle, Whitney Houston’s life story. We are lucky, two premieres in 2 days. 

On our bus ride we caught up with John riding his horse around town..

We checked out Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive but I didn’t buy anything. 

This is Hollywood as we travelled around. 

The last weekend in Los Angeles we stayed in Santa Monica right by the beach.

Santa Monica at the end of Route 66 was a popular song in our younger years. The song's lyrics follow the path of the US Route 66 which runs across the US from Chicago to Los Angeles.

Part of the fun being here is checking out the muscles at Muscle Beach and fun on the Pier.

We spent an interesting night in town and were entertained by all sorts of weird people.The levitator amused all of us. We still can’t think of a way he did it.

We spent the second morning down on Venice Beach looking at the passing parade.

After lunch we picked up our luggage and spent the afternoon laying around on Venice Beach watching the sights then it was off to the airport and back home.