For Memorial Day this year (2007), Mom & I decided to take a long weekend to LA and San Diego. They are both really lovely cities. I personally think southern California gets a bit of a bad rap. YES, it’s crowded but the weather is just about perfect and there really is a lot to do. I’ll start out by talking about the Los Angeles part of our trip.
Wednesday – May 23
We started out the trip with an evening flight from Detroit to LAX (on Northwest). The flight was uneventful and we arrived in LA on time, around 9:30PM. There were no problems retrieving the rental car from Budget, which I purchased on priceline. Then it was onto the hotel, the Westin at Los Angeles Airport. I will try to write reviews of the hotel and rental car at a later date but let me say that I was very satisfied with each. After a quick McDonald’s, it was off to bed.
Thursday – May 24
We woke to some low clouds but a generally nice day. This was the trend for just about every morning we were there. We had a busy day ahead of us so we took off right away! First stop was the Farmer’s Market in LA. Traffic getting there was no problem and I wanted to show it to mom. It was really lovely by the time we got there and we tried to get some late breakfast. The place we ate wasn’t great but the atmosphere of eating outside with all the little booths is really unique and a lot of fun. It’s interesting just to walk around and check out all the different offerings the vendors have. I’m glad I took mom there. We also spent some time shopping at the adjacent shopping center, The Grove. That is reallly nice too and by this time the weather was next to perfect. Mid-70s probably and just about the warmest day we had!
In the afternoon, we headed to the Warner Brothers Studio for the VIP tour. This is really interesting if you are into TV (or movies) at all. They give you a pretty detailed 2-hour tour of their facility in Burbank. We even toured a sound stage this time, for Three and a Half Men. It was really interesting to see how small that was. Everything is on hiatus so there wasn’t really any filming going on. They do a lot of TV shows and few movies there. The upcoming “Oceans 13″ was filmed there. Gilmore Girls and ER are a couple current TV shows that we also saw sets from. It gives a good overview into the behind the scenes of movies. It’s $42 but worth it I think.
From there, we took a quick tour of the Hollywood area, near the Grauman’s Theater. There is also a newish shopping mall attached to the Kodak Theater. This area was *very* busy and frankly not all that impressive. We could have taken a tour of Hollywood but I’ve done it before and it’s not great. And there are too many people here pushing whatever it is they want to sell. I think it’s something everybody should see but after an hour, we were ready to go.
We drove down the Sunset strip from Hollywood all the way down to the ocean. That is really cool drive and it really spans a lot of the LA area. Very pretty as you get closer to the Pacific. Once there, you can choose to take the Pacific Coast Highway, north or south. Right there is Gladstone’s, where we ate dinner. We got lucky and snagged a good table with a nice ocean view. There is just something special about eating with a view of the ocean!!
After a quick tour of Santa Monica, we were ready to call it a night! That was a long day! 
Friday – May 25
Well, since we clearly didn’t get enough time there the night before, we had breakfast in Santa Monica. People in CA apparently don’t like eating inside. We sat outside on right on the promonade at a place called Barney’s Beanery. It was great and a really good breakfast on top of that. For whatever reason I really like having a nice breakfast when I’m on vacation.
Anyway, from there we drove up the coast, past Malibu. That section of coastline is really breathtaking and I wanted mom to see it. I wish we had more time to spend a little time at the beach. It was pretty quiet but the northbound traffic was really picking up. So we headed back south and towards Beverly Hills. We made a quick stop on Rodeo drive for some window shopping. Nothing there was even remotely in our price range!! Well, except parking spots — they were actually free!
Our next stop was the Getty museum. This is really a beautiful spot on the top of the mountains (Santa Monica mtns I guess). You can really see a long ways and they have it landscaped just beautifully. I really enjoy that you have to take this tram thingy to the top. They have various art exhibits as well which are pretty interesting. A lot of their exhibits are exhibitions so you will probably see different things when you are there. I think the highlight is the gardens though — they really are lovely with all the flowers. The architecture of the place is worth a trip. I really don’t think my words can do it justice so just look at the pictures!
From here, we made a quick stop in Sherman Oaks to have dinner with my friend, and then it was on to San Diego!! I must say that I wish we had more time in LA. I think it has to be one of the most underrated cities in this country and deserved more than 2 days!!
Reviews posted about this trip:
Westin LAX
Barney’s Beanery – Santa Monica
To continue reading about San Diego, click here: San Diego Blog.
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Tags: beach · california · farmersmarket · getty · hollywood · LA · santamonica · warnerbros3 Comments
Sounds like a great trip. You should tell the name of the place where the food wasn’t so hot. Nice pictures. It would be nice of they had alt and title tags so you know exactly what they are when you roll over them. Or maybe just labels underneath. I know the paragraphs went along with them but I like labels
I’ll read about San Diego tomorrow…
That is just how Wordpress works. For each picture, there is an alt, but it doesn’t show up as that sort of tag, apparently.
[...] the continuation of my trip to LA and San Diego for Memorial Day, 2007. (If you missed it, read the Los Angeles report first). San Diego really is a great place to visit and the weather is possibly better than even LA. [...]