The Lane's next BIG trip: Day 19. Los Angeles. Tuesday 7th January

With no car, we wanted to get around too see other 'tourist' spots and the obvious choice is to do one of many Double Decker tours with a bus load of tourists. The only problem with that is that LA is so big that there were 6 different routes on the Double Decker bus to choose from. Each route only had 1 or 2 things that we wanted to see and we didn't want to do all 6 routes. We wanted something a bit more personal and decided to cruise through Hollywood, Belair, Beverly Hills, Venice Beach, Santa Monica and along Rodeo drive in a red 1966 Cadillac convertible looking very cool. Our driver/tour guide was great and for 4 hours took us to many well known and sometimes infamous places (The Viper room, Whiskey-Go-Go, and homes of the rich and famous). We started with a closer look at the Hollywood sign and learnt more about its history. We saw more studios where lots of the LA movies and TV shows are made, we saw the huge homes and former homes of many stars including Tom Cruise, Jennifer Anniston, Brad and Angelina, David and Victoria Beckham, Douglas Fairbank and Mary Pickford, Rosemary Clooney, Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion and Elvis and Priscilla (the house is directly opposite where Michael Jackson died 40+ years later) and lots more that I've already forgotten.
We jumped out, bought a coffee and then walked along Rodeo Drive window shopping (tick that off Christine's bucket list). We also went to see Marilyn Monroe's final resting place and saw a few other famous names on the walls and headstones (another tick for Christine's bucket list). At 2pm our tour finished and we were dropped off at Venice Beach where we started to walk back up the beach to Santa Monica. After 15 mins or so the kids said they wanted to go back to Venice and take a picture of Robert Downer Jr's home that we had passed. We thought we could remember where it was but unfortunately after more than an hour of walking the streets we couldn't find it (we did see Australian actor and TV presenter Grant Bowler at a café, though!) We then had a leisurely walk up to Santa Monica via the beach and spent some time on the Pier. There is a small amusement park on the pier and Andrew and Jacob had a turn on the roller coaster and Cameron tried his hand at popping some balloons, which he did very successfully. We jumped in a taxi to take us back to the hotel and spent about half an hour in peak hour traffic. Another great day.