Despite fearing that my body might insist on keeping me on UK time I actually slept pretty well last night. I was able to sleep through until 7am with only a couple of periods awake. The bed itself was typically American – big and very high off the ground, poor Helen needed a step ladder to reach it!
We set off and started our walk along Hollywood Boulevard, which is only a couple of minutes from the place we are staying. For all the glamour shown in the movies Hollywood is a dump and Hollywood Boulevard itself is incredibly tacky. That said it is great fun.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame, the iconic stars celebrating the famous from music, TV and film, is much, much longer than I had expected. It was good to walk along seeing how many we could recognise. I found my favourite though…
At Hollywood and Highland was a shopping centre which also had views across to the Hollywood sign so we stopped there for a look and a picture. However, what was more fascinating was the huge arch and elephants atop massive columns that surrounded a central area and fountain. Bonkers. Just a few yards further up the road was the famous Chinese Theatre and hand prints outside in the concrete.
What wasn’t so great about Hollywood Boulevard were the hawkers regularly dotted along the street pushing bus tours of the area. They were similar to those we encountered in Cambridge but much more aggressive and rude.
After lunch we took a cab up the steep and windy road to the Griffith Observatory which we had seen recently in the film La La Land. In the film Ryan Gosling drives Emma Stone up there and two of them spend a magical time dancing around the exhibits. It was just the same for Helen and I only without the dancing and with several thousand other people also there.
With the temperature nudging 30 Helen decided that it would be a swell(tering) idea to walk back down to bottom. To be fair it wasn’t very far but it was hot and so it was a relief when we finally made it back to base camp!
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