Los Angeles , some sights

Returning from Alaska, we halted at Los Angeles for a couple of days. The sights and sounds of this vibrant city forms the content of today’s episode.

We decided to do a conducted tour of Los Angeles so that we can get a quick roundup of the city and then, we could do in detail whatever interests us later on by ourselves .

Booking a tour with “A Day in LA”, we reached the designated pickup point in downtown SantaMonica for our tour.

Our tour bus and Steven, our guide

We were picked up near the Santa Monica Place, a mall in downtown Santa Monica…This is close to third street promenade in downtown Santa Monica.

Santa Monica Place with shops and restaurants

The third street promenade in downtown Santa Monica is a pedestrians only street with fountains, restaurants and shops making it a lively place in the evenings…

Some pictures from downtown Santa Monica…..

Third street Promenade Santa Monica

The Broadway Theatre and Tesla showroom

Ocean Avenue next to the Santa Monica pier

Steven , our guide ,gave us an overview of the plan for the day and we set out to Santa Monica Pier which was our first halt and then proceeded to Venice Beach with Steven pointing out various sights along the way. Santa Monica pier and Venice will be covered in the episode on beaches of LA.

As we drove around ,Steven pointed out the Santa Monica civic centre which was once an academy awards venue and a peculiar looking building with an entrance shaped like a pair of giant binoculars which houses the LA office of Google!!

Santa Monica civic centre and the binoculars outside the office of Google…

A pair of towers caught our attention and Steven pointed out that they were built by the same architect who designed the Twin Towers in the US . The CAA building in front of it is so designed with a huge window that one can see the twin towers through that…

The twin towers and the CAA building

Downtown Los Angeles

Driving along some parts of LA downtown, the skyscrapers of various sizes and shapes kept appearing. Off and on, the homeless and their misery contrasted with the plush looking apartments and skyscrapers. Some pictures…

Plush skyscrapers

And the contrasting misery of the homeless!!!

Steven dropped us off at Farmer’s Market for lunch….

Farmer’s Market

This market is a historic LA landmark opened in 1934. It is an area of foodstalls, eateries, food vendors and local produce market. Unlike such markets elsewhere, this market is permanent. We were spoiled with choices here. Too many appetising looking stuff kept us confused on what to have. Finally we settled down for some pizza and local icecream recommened by Steven.

Farmer’s Market with the eateries

After lunch, we headed to Griffith Observatory…

Griffith Observatory

This is an observatory in Los Angeles located in Griffith Park and overlooking downtown LA and the famous Hollywood sign .

The observatory, constructed in 1935, was envisioned and funded by Col. Griffith J. Griffith. With decorative concrete elements and distinctive components, such as an 85 ft diameter copper-clad planetarium dome and cupola, coelostat, and telescope domes, it stands out against the usual buildings.

It has an extensive array of science related displays particularly related to space.

The Griffith Observatory

At the observatory, visitors can look through telescopes, explore exhibits, see live shows in the Samuel Oschin Planetarium, and enjoy spectacular views of Los Angeles and the Hollywood Sign. It houses a Zeiss refracting telescope which allows night visitors to star gaze!

In front of the main building of the observatory as you walk up towards it, you come across the Astronomer’s Monument which was built to pay homage to six of the greatest astronomers of all time and is quite beautiful to see in real life.

Astronomer’s Monument

Los Angeles city as seen from Griffith Park

The main entrance to the observatory and the beautiful inside of the dome

As soon as you enter, there is a huge pendulum called the Foucault Pendulum which provides proof of the earth’s rotation…

Function of the pendulum explained…

Foucault Pendulum (click on the video)

The observatory has also been a filming location for many movies and has made it an international emblem of LA. Talking of landmarks, we move on to another such landmark….the hollywood sign.

The Hollywood Sign

This iconic sign of LA is best viewed from Griffith Park outside the Griffith Observatory. The sign is situated on Mount Lee in the Santa Monica mountains which overlook the Griffith observatory. The alphabets are 50 ft tall and was initially erected in 1923 by a real estate developer as a temporary advertisement. Due to its popularity, it was retained and redone in 1978 with more durable material.

The sign is located on rough steep terrain in the Griffith Park and protected by barriers to avoid unauthorised access. Visitors can hike to the sign .

The Hollywood sign

After the visit to Griffith Observatory, we visited Hollywood and Beverly Hills which will be touched upon in a later episode.

As we drove around LA, a couple of local sights that attracted us were….

The Big Blue Bus which serves as the public transport system and is very user friendly and reasonable. We did try this out a couple of times….

The Big Blue Bus

The food delivery robot….

A food delivery robot was doing it’s rounds and we got to see it wait and cross the road with pedestrians at one of the signals….much to our amusement!!!!