Los
Angeles is:
- a megalopolis of 10 million
people;
-140
nationalities (including a strong Hispanic community);
-one
hundred different spoken languages;
-6500
square miles of elaborate road networks;
-the
country’s second biggest economic pole thanks to the strong
“work more to earn more” spirit.
We
start our visit by Downtown,
the town center, very animated during daytime, where the sky-scrapers
of the Financial District and the Civic Center are located. After California Plaza, where the
bureaucrats and visitors like to take a break while sipping a cup of
coffee on the terrace, we follow the Angel
Flight funicular and arrive on Broadway,
cutting through Grand Central Market,
with its cosmopolitan atmosphere and its stalls hold mostly by Mexicans
or Chinese.
Broadway
had its moment of glory at the beginning of the 2oth
century, with theatres and cinemas such as Sid Grauman’s Million Dollar Theater (1918),
where all the big premieres took place.
Nearby is the Jeweler’s District and the
Fashion
District, where the prices of clothes are attractive but the
quality is very often mediocre.
In the afternoon, we head for El Pueblo, one of the first
Mexican quarters.
We go up Olvera
Street, a footpath filled with a multitude of stalls selling
pottery, paintings, Mexican leather handbags, gaudy souvenirs...
From the plaza, we get our first
sight of the Mission and
the train station Union Station.
Up north from El
Pueblo there is Chinatown,
which is financed and controled by Chinese from L.A.
We head towards Hollywood, famous for its films,
the stars on its pavements, and the big white letters perched on its
hill. In fact it’s a disappointing area, specially at night.
Most of the studios have moved, and have been replaced by a multitude
of souvenir shops along Hollywood
Boulevard. At night, the neighbourhood is of ill fame and
full of homeless people.
Since a star slipped and fell during
the inauguration of the Chinese Theater, its owner (Sid
Grauman), asked other celebrities to leave their prints in the plaster.
You can see them in front of it on Hollywood
Boulevard.
Sunset
Strip, which runs parallel to Hollywood Boulevard, is a
very “hip” place to be seen in the evening.
We stopped off at Santa
Monica, a posh sea-side resort located 15 miles west of
Downtown Los Angeles. There had dinner in a restaurant with a surf
atmosphere and view on the sea.
Finally, don’t forget to
visit the residential neighbourhood of Beverly Hills, that became famous
thanks to the series.
Los Angeles is a very vast city. It’s best to give yourself several days to visit it.
