Los Angeles (Road trip Western USA Part 10)

When you think of Los Angeles, the first things that come to mind are Hollywood and the film industry. However, on our first day, we explored a different part of the city. We went up to the roof of City Hall, from where we had a beautiful view over a park and part of the city.

View from City Hall

The ascent was a bit complicated because we had to register at the bottom to get a visitor pass. There was also a security check before we could enter the building.

Our path led us to the 'Walt Disney Concert Hall', a concert hall built in 2003.

Los Angeles became even more spectacular and exciting during our tour of Hollywood.

We strolled along the Walk of Fame and visited the film museum with all sorts of props and anecdotes from various Hollywood productions.

Walk of Fame

At the Grauman's Chinese Theatre, we could compare our hand and footprints with those of famous stars...

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

We also wanted to see the film studios from the outside, but we wouldn't recommend it: the walk was very long and there wasn't much to see.

Our plan to spontaneously take a tour at Paramount Pictures also failed. It is recommended to book in advance, so we had to postpone it to the next day.

Originally, we wanted to see more the next day, but on the multi-lane bypass road, another car hit us from behind. The driver initially claimed not to speak English until we suggested calling the police. There was actually not much damage to the car, but because it was a rental car and not our fault, we wanted to get all his information.

Later, we read in the rental terms that in any case, the police should be called in the event of an accident, so that's what we did. So we waited in a street near Paramount Pictures and after two hours, a friendly police officer came and took the case. At least we had a case number. (Which we didn't need, as we noticed when we returned the car: under all the dirt, you couldn't see any scratches anyway and no one inspected the car closely.)

On the way to Santa Barbara, we drove through Beverly Hills and admired the mansions of the rich and famous of Hollywood.

Unfortunately, we didn't have a proper plan of where to go, so we just marveled at the large estates and eventually found our way back to the highway.