Grand Tour of L.A.

What was supposed to be a 3/4 of a day tour of L.A turned into a 9.15 AM until 7.00 PM tour, I guess that's why they call it the 'Grand' tour! We got to see a helluva lot though, a lot more than we would ever have been able to do by car, foot or public transport.


Luckily we had an awesome tour bus driver who turned out to be an ex-middle school teacher and fancied himself as a bit of a comedian. His awful American sense of humour got old pretty quickly but being the maverick he was took us to places not on the scheduled itinerary and let us wander and walk around parts of the city he wasn't designated to stop at - hence why the tour ran over so much.


We didn't mind though, we got to see so much I couldn't list it all but some of the highlights were: Downtown L.A which featured the Staples Centre (home of the L.A. Lakers), the Nokia building which America's Got Talent calls home, the Courthouse where many famous celebrities have bought their way out of murder charges (including O.J Simpson) and the women's penitentiary that Lindsay Lohan will be calling home for the next 90 days.


We also saw L.A.'s first and founding street and its oldest house, which by comparison to certain houses on...oh say Mermaid Street in Rye, really isn't that old at all! We then took a trip up the Hollywood hills, taking in the famous sign, looking down into the Hollywood Bowl concert venue and nosing at the stars homes. You should be able to see L.A in the photo's taken from the hills but unfortunately the fog rolling in off the sea made it invisible behind the cloud.


We took a walk down Hollywood Blvd. seeing the walk of fame and hand prints on the street outside the Chinese theatre, the Kodak theatre (home of the Oscars) and Disney's personal premier theatre. From here we went to Beverley Hills, Sunset Strip, Rodeo Drive, Melrose Avenue and every other famous street and landmark you can think of.


On the way back we swung by Santa Monica to see the famous pier, as well as the beach that Baywatch was filmed on, took a peak at Venice beach, then swung by the Marina Del Rey (the worlds largest man-made small boat harbour) before getting dropped back at our hotel. How did we spend our evening?..washing our dirty laundry, way to be bought back down to earth!