We decided to walk down Sunset Boulevard to Hollywood Boulevard today rather than get on the bus again, although it was quite overcast the promise was for the weather to improve so we set off in shorts hoping that the forecast was right. It isn’t actually that far and by the time we got to the Hollywood walk of fame – where all the names of the stars are in stars on the ground the sun was out and it had turned into a really nice day. There are a lot of people on the walk of fame that we didn’t actually recognise but quite a few we did, including Donald Duck! We eventually found the tourist information centre which was quite well hidden but they didn’t really have a lot of info so we went to the Startline tourist shop to buy our hop on hop off bus tickets, we will spend the next 3 days exploring the city using the bus then move to public transport. We decided to take the purple route to downtown which is where LA actually began. We drove round China Town but didn’t actually get off as it was created by a set designer with input from the Chinese community as a tourist attraction and it very much looks like a tourist destination, we did however get off at El Pueblo which is the historic district near the site where LA was founded in 1781, it has buildings that date back to the early 19th century when the city was an outpost under Mexican rule. The bus dropped us just by the square and I am not sure if it is just because it is Memorial Day but this was just like being back in Mexico, there were musicians playing and all the – mostly older generation – locals were there with their chairs, picnics and they were dancing in the square, it is great to watch and as I say very much like being in Mexico. Unfortunately the tourist information centre was shut as they have a self guided walking map of the historic area so we had to make do with the information plaques and the limited information we had in the book! We think we found most of the sites, the old church, warehouse buildings and the first fire station in the area then we stopped for lunch in a taverna that again was just like being back in Mexico, aided by the fact that either it was full of locals or Mexican tourists as we were pretty much the only people speaking English! From here we walked to Union Station which was built in 1939 during the golden age of rail travel and it shows. It doesn’t really look like a station from outside, more a very large hacienda but once you get inside it is definitely a railway station from a different era. Although the modern ticket counters are at the back of the station near the train lines you walk in to a massive entrance hall with all the old fashioned ticket desks off to the side and a wooden information booth in the main concourse further down are the leather chairs you can wait for your train and just before the train tracks are the shoe shine booths! This has been used in a number of films, but not as a train station, mostly as a bank from what I can make out but all the same it is very spectacular. From there we walked down to City Hall which looks a bit like the Empire State Building in New York, it was built in 1928 and was LA’s tallest building for 40 years which is not surprising at it was three times taller than the hight limit at the time! If it hadn’t been Memorial Day we could have gone in to look at the rotunda which is covered in marble but we couldn’t so we continued walking downtown, as we were doing so we saw a plane that wrote Happy Memorial Day in the sky but it was so neat it was really spectacular. We went past the LAPD headquarters and finally to the Bradbury Building which is not offices but the entrance hall and stairways have been restored to their original state with open cage elevators and very elegant stairways, again unfortunately we couldn’t go in today but we were able to look through the doors and admire the spectacle inside. From here we walked to Angel Flight which is a Funicular which they maintain is the shorted in the world, I am not convinced but wouldn’t like to argue with them, it has been relocated and refurbished and is now nothing more than a tourist attraction where you can go up and come back down for a $1 per ride! Having finished walking round this area we walked back to the Hop on Hop off bus stop and took the ride back to Hollywood Boulevard and subsequently back to the hotel, it is really good on the bus as we managed to see Macarthur and Echo Parks as well as things like the LA High school where a number of famous people like Judy Garland went to school We got back to the hotel about 5.30 and wet to the room to relax and watch the sun set over downtown LA, very impressive.
