Walking in the City - Griffith Park, Los Angeles

Think of Los Angeles and the image it conjures might be of a sprawl of urban neighborhoods dissected by boulevards such as Hollywood, Sunset and Santa Monica, and congested multi-lane highways. But it is also home to Griffith Park, one of the largest urban wilderness parks in the United States.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 15 - Joshua Tree to Los Angeles

 Day 15. We'd driven more than 4,000 miles through 14 states and had just one more National Park to visit and 132 miles to drive before we would arrive at our final destination in Los Angeles. Apart from a tornado scare on the second day, the trip had gone without a hitch. Unfortunately, our luck didn't quite hold.

Amtrak Adventure Day 17 - Los Angeles to San Francisco

If you have to start your day at a train station, Union Station, Los Angeles is not a bad place to do it. The Spanish Colonial Revival building not only looks good on the outside, but is equally impressive inside with a painted ceiling in the waiting room which, while appearing to be wood, is actually steel. 

If the idea of the forthcoming hours on the train are enough to drive you outside for as long as possible before getting on board, there is an outdoor patio decorated with mosaic tiles and a fountain as an alternative place to wait. 

Not all the station is in daily use. There used to be a restaurant and a large ticket office but these are now closed to the public and, this being LA, used only for filming and special events.

From Los Angeles we were heading to San Francisco on the Coast Starlight, reputedly one of the most scenic of Amtrak's routes. Two hours into the journey we began to see why. The train tracks follow the coastline from just south of Santa Barbara for over a hundred miles north. At first they run right alongside the beach. 

Then as the gradient increases continue on along the clifftops.  The views are stunning.

  

For part of the journey we were accompanied by a flock of pelicans. It's the first time I've ever seen pelicans in flight. 

We passed the spot where a ruptured pipeline had spilled oil into the sea on May 19th forcing nearby campgrounds to close over Memorial Day Weekend and instead be used as bases for the clean-up crews. 

The train passes through Vandenberg Air Force Base which is usually off limits to all but military personnel and a handful of residents who have bought up land sold off by the Airforce. This means that passengers on the trains are the only other people able to enjoy the views at this point.   

After San Luis Obispo the train moves away from the coast and passes through several tunnels as it climbs the mountainside. At once point it winds around a curve so huge that the front of the train can be seen from the back carriages! 

Taken from the back carriage of this train

The brown landscape could easily be mistaken for sand dunes, but in fact is more likely a result of the years of drought.  It changed again as we moved further north towards Salinas which is known as "The Salad Bowl of the World" because of the amount of lettuce it produces, and then towards both the "Artichoke Capital of the World" and "The Garlic Capital of the World" which need little explanation. I must admit you could smell the latter as we went by.  

Our journey actually ended at Oakland as Amtrak does  not go into San Francisco itself, but provides a connecting bus service to deliver passengers downtown. After an eleven hour train journey, the idea of the bus transfer was not particularly appealing but the ride over the Bay Bridge and into the lights of the city at night more than made up for the inconvenience.    

Amtrak Adventure - Day 16 - A Day at the Beach

With only two days to explore Los Angeles and having spent the first in Hollywood and Beverly Hills, it seemed sensible to spend the second day relaxing at one of the many beaches.  We chose Santa Monica, partly because I had fond memories of a previous visit many years ago and partly because we could get a bus from near our hotel straight along Santa Monica Boulevard right to the beach front. How convenient was that in a town not known for its public transport?

Santa Monica is all you could want from a beach resort with its cliff top walk,

complete with wonderful views of the long, sandy beaches and distant mountains,

plus an abundance of tall palm trees. Just how tall?  Some almost as tall as an eight-story building, such as the one outside the blue-painted Georgian Hotel.

When we first arrived the beach was relatively empty, but what we found amusing was that as more people arrived by car they would sit on the beach near the parking lot next to the pier rather than move further down the beach to where there were fewer people. I’d heard that people in LA rarely walk, but this seemed to be taking things to an extreme.  Personally, I’d rather go the extra distance away from the crowds!

A parking lot on the beach - must be LA!

For those who don’t like sitting on the beach, the pier has a funfair, a trapeze school (wish I'd been brave enough to try it!), several restaurants, including a soda fountain which sells huge, delicious ice-cream sundaes (here I speak from experience) and some excellent musicians.

A little rock and roll to add to the atmosphere

This singer performed an excellent version of Hallelujah

It’s also the spot for some nice views back to the beach.

If you get bored with the beach and the pier, the town center boasts a pedestrian mall of shops, restaurants and an art-deco movie theater. 

Verdict: A nice place to hang out and relax on a sunny day and a great opportunity to see the locals at play without having to venture too far away from downtown LA. 

Amtrak Adventure - Day15 - Los Angeles

Walked out of Union Station, Los Angeles at about six am in the morning to find a huge police presence, patrol cars and SUV's with lights flashing, roadways blocked and some guy being put into the back of a police car. It looked like a scene out of a movie, but apparently it wasn't. Even our taxi driver was curious as to what was going on, but we never did find out. 
Hardly a welcoming start to our visit.

Not being able to check in to our hotel at such an early hour, we stored our bags and set out looking for somewhere to have breakfast. Despite it being a weekday, this proved quite a challenge as everywhere seemed closed until we found a Dennys on Sunset Boulevard. Maybe the day starts later in LA than most cities?

Fortified by a huge breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage (was I really expected to eat it all?) we headed for Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street where the Walk of Fame begins. Maybe it's a sign of my age, but I recognised a good many of the names, old and new. One section seemed to focus on British stars including two of my current favorites:

Further along the street we came to the elaborate El Capitan movie theatre which has been in use since 1926 as "Hollywood's First Home of Spoken Drama." 

Directly across the street, a more modern if somewhat strange sight - giant washers and dryers, apparently a set for a beauty commercial. This must be Hollywood! 

And a little further on, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, with its concrete blocks in the forecourt with the hand and foot imprints and signatures of various stars. I was surprised there were not more but it turns out that only those who are considered to have made a particular contribution to Hollywood cinema are included outside the theatre entrance. Many of the more recent ceremonies have been done purely for publicity purposes and paid for by the studios. 

                                               

The whole area was a little over-commercialized and tacky so we headed down the quieter Highland Avenue back towards Melrose Avenue to our hotel, The Historic Hollywood Hotel. Opened in 1927, the hotel is now on the National register of Historic Places. With its location just across the street from Paramount Studios it was once popular with celebrities and the corridors are lined with black and white photos of stars of bygone eras such as this one of Shirley Temple. 

The lobby of the hotel has been lovingly restored and overall the hotel provided a delightful alternative to more modern chain hotels.

The hotel's location across from Paramount Studios was particularly convenient. We were able to take a two hour afternoon tour which took us around the enormous lot past 32 stages, workshops for everything from scenery to costumes, the Production Park where screenwriters, directors and producers work, and many buildings named for the stars who used to use them while on set. We also went into a prop warehouse containing a selection of items from recent movies. 

This car was used by Tom Cruise in the 'Jack Reacher' movie. According to our tour guide, he wasn't supposed to crash it, but did which is why it's now a bit of a wreck!

And if, unlike me, you have seen the Transformer movie, you might recognize this:

Part of the lot is known as New York because of the permanent sets depicting streets in Greenwich Village, The Upper East Side, Brooklyn, Washington Square and the Financial District. There is also a 'Chicago' street. I was impressed by how realistic they were. The tour makes you realise how much work goes into making a movie or a television show, especially behind the scenes, and the lengths that the creators will go to to turn an illusion into apparent reality. 

                      

We ended the day with a walk to Beverley Hills (perhaps not surprisingly given this was LA, the only other people we passed were dog-walkers!) and along Rodeo Drive. We didn't get there until after the stores were closed but judging from the goods displayed in the up-market shops that was probably just as well. Fortunately, on nearby Santa Monica Boulevard, we found Panini's Mediterranean Cafe which offered tasty food at prices we could afford. 

Verdict: A fun but exhausting day. LA is a sprawling city and to do it justice you probably do need a car, but I was surprised at just how pleasant and easy it was to walk around - at least in the Hollywood/Beverley Hills area.   

Amtrak Adventure - Day 14 - San Antonio to Los Angeles

Twenty-nine hours on the train. That's how long it takes to get from San Antonio to Los Angeles. The Texas Eagle leaves San Antonio at two-forty-five in the morning and arrives in LA at five-thirty-five the following morning but two time zones are crossed adding two hours to the apparent journey time.  

Thankfully, we had a sleeper reservation  which meant we traveled in relative comfort. The sleeper compartments are tiny and, while meant for two, require a certain amount of synchronised movement in order to navigate the space at night when the beds are down. As we discovered on our earlier overnighter on the train to Richmond, there is very little room for luggage so you need to be well organised as regards what you have with you for the night. 

Given the ungodly hour we got on the train we slept for the first part of the journey, waking only in time for breakfast in the dining car (all meals are included if you are have a sleeper reservation). That provided our first opportunity to see the passing landscape.

 

Miles and miles and miles of empty space - it makes you realise how big America is, how big Texas is! Every so often there would be some sign of habitation.

Pecan trees

And for a long stretch there were pecan trees as far as we could see. 

When we finally got into New Mexico the scenery changed to desert. Miles and miles of flat desert.

Even the small towns the train stopped at looked flat.

Lordsburg NM

Arizona offered a different outlook with scrub and huge, craggy rock formations. 

Some of the scenery was spectacular but unfortunately my camera chose that moment to run out of battery and by the time it was recharged it was too dark to get any decent photos. 

As another day dawned we arrived in Los Angeles. The train may not be the fastest method of getting around but it certainly offers a relaxed opportunity to appreciate the varied wonders of the American landscape.