MINESSAA: Los Angeles Highlights

For me (and I'm pretty sure most of you would agree), more than the half of my expectations about Los Angeles is related to Hollywood! In my mind, I had a huge street in mind with all the stars with celebrities' names and glamorous shops all around.

This is why for our first stop in Los Angeles, we headed to Hollywood Blvd and I can tell you that it was overrated in my mind. We used Uber to go directly in front of the Chinese Theater. This has been the premiere venue for red carpet events and this is where Hollywood stars come to watch movie premieres mostly. In the entrance, you might see the foot prints, hand prints and signatures of biggest Hollywood starts and it is soo much fun to do celebrity hunting!

The theater offers VIP tours (obviously it's Hollywood - it has to be VIP!) to learn the history inside and out. They tell stories, historical facts and gossips about Hollywood premieres or ceremonies. You can buy your ticket for about $15 online or once you're there.

You might consider visiting Hard Rock Cafe or Hollywood Wax Museum right around the neighborhood. Right across Ghirardelli, there is an outdoor shopping district with an amazing terrace you can view the Hollywood sign.

PS: If you haven't read my San Francisco post, I definitely suggest you here to visit Ghirardelli and buy some chocolate - they are amaziiing!

The walk of fame continues for many blocks on the Hollywood blvd but after a certain point it gets weird. The streets become dirtier, shops around the street gets nastier and people get more strange. It was extremely fun to keep walking looking at names of the stars, the further we walked the more it got impossible to recognize the names.

Santa Monica has a wooden pier that was first built in the 19th century and today is a popular tourist destination with shops, street artists, food courts, and a little theme park with a roller coaster, many arcade shops and a giant Ferris wheel.

The pier is also the end of historic Route 66, which connects the West Coast to the East. Even though travelers tend to travel more with planes and less with cars over states, the Route 66 - end of the trail sign is still quite famous for tourists.

Besides pier, you might also consider having a walk on the beach and enjoy the sand, join others to do some yoga or have a little picnic. If you opt for the picnic option, keep an eye on the seagulls flying around, who might steal your food away!

Following Santa Monica to the south, you will reach Venice Beach. If you are traveling the city with a bike or a scooter, you might actually arrive easily here - if not, you might need to Uber again.

In theory, this is yet another beach - amazing for sunbathing, having a quick bath in the ocean or surf. Since this beach is completely open in the ocean, it gets quite windy and wavy, so if you are thinking that you might have a looong swim off the shore, forget about it.

PS: I would also hesitate sunbathing tough - when I was there, a police car ran over a tourist sunbathing on the beach. Luckily, nothing happened to the visitor.

Besides the beach itself, Venice beach is also amazing with its bohemian spirit, extreme work-out stations and commercial spots. The Venice Broadwalk has many funky shops, street performers and colorful murals. Take your time to walk around, breath in the LA style and watch people dance, skateboard or just be!

If you have more time around, you might also visit the Venice Canals. The canals are built artificially by Abbot Kinney (a tobacco millionaire) in the beginning of 20th century to bring a taste of Venice to his residential area. Even though some of the canals were then turned into streets, some of them are saved after a bunch of trials. It is claimed that the canals feel like Venice, but it actually has nothing to with it. Still, it might give a good walk with cool houses and bridges.

Griffith Observatory was in my bucket list from the Lonely Planet book, so we ended our day here. Admission to the Observatory building, grounds and telescopes are free. You have 2 possibilities when planning your trip: you might visit the Observatory during the day and get a pretty good view of the Hollywood sign or visit it during the night and get a magical view of the city of angels with shiny lights. We did the later and I am impressed! The next time, we'll go during the day tough :)

Make sure to have enough time to visit the museum and learn about space, telescope technology, our planet and the sun system. It's just amazing. For the telescope viewing, you might need to wait in the line for about an hour.

We planned all of our trip such that we would use Uber to go from one place to another instead of renting a car - considering the lack of parking spots in town and the cost of parking tickets during the way. It turns out, it was a pretty good idea - except we got lucky and one of my friends from Italy who lives in LA was available during the day and met us to show us around! So, both Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive was kinda on my list to see, but it was not feasible with an Uber - I wouldn't be shopping there anyways. We just drove around for a while, listening to Pretty Woman and it was gorgeous!

Even though this is not the best region for accommodation or souvenir shopping, this is a pretty good region to eat! We had two dinners in this region: one in the Farmer's Market and the other one in Eataly - both highly recommended.

It literally took us 1 day to visit all these places without running around and we were in LA for a weekend. We spent one more day in the Six Flags Magic Mountain park. I don't understand from neither roller coasters nor theme parks, but it is a part of American culture and Fabio loves them - so..