A long weekend in Los Angeles: our editor shows you how
A sunny stroll through the canals which are a great surprise to find in such a sprawling city, and we picked up our bags from the hotel and headed back out to the airport for our 9pm flight. An entirely different continent and three days of discovery, then back feeling refreshed. The best way to holiday.
WORDS + PHOTOS Jenny Rudd
So you probably think it's not possible, what with that 12 hour flight. But it all dovetails neatly. The flights are overnight both directions, and there's only a 3 hour time difference, which you barely notice. Leave Auckland Friday night and land mid-morning on the same day. Then leave LA on Sunday night and land back home first thing on Tuesday. Because you've slept all night on the plane you'll be fresh enough to go to work that day. So you can go on holiday to America and only take Monday off work. What a great shimmy!
Friday
If we're only going for the weekend, we're staying in Venice Beach with the action. We dumped our stuff and got straight outside. Using your Uber app, you can pick up ebikes to cruise along the boulevard. It's a slow ride because there's so much take in and see. Although Venice is famous for Muscle Beach and oiled bronze bodies, there's also a hippy, anything-goes vibe which you notice straight away, cycling through fragrant puffs of weed smoke; marijuana's legal in California.
The bike path ran for miles. Eventually the bright colours and pleasant oddball residents faded to the sleeker Santa Monica. The farmer's market was in full swing so we gulped down bright and sweet blood orange juice and turned round to head back.
We were amazed by the number of people using all the public facilities; there were lots of basketball matches going on with spectators joining in and dropping out, the skatepark was a blur of tie dye and wheels on concrete. A huge, empty car park had been repurposed as an ice hockey pitch.
After a full day of biking and sightseeing, we were pretty happy to grab takeaway caprese salads from the deli next door to the hotel and eat them in bed, flicking through the millions of TV channels.
Saturday
If a tour guide is as enthusiastic and knowledgeable as Daniel, you know you're going to have a good time. An online search had showed us that ALL Day LA Tours would teach us about the history of the city and give us ideas of things to do. We started in Hollywood at the Walk of Fame, then up to the Hollywood sign which used to be a real estate sign for the land underneath in Franklin Village, a peaceful graveyard housing some of the greats: Marylin Monroe, Hugh Hefner, and my favourite - Peter Faulk of Columbo fame.
Daniel took us through the grounds of Greystone Mansion, a huge estate in Beverly Hills with landscaped grounds built in the twenties by oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny for his son, Ned. It's since been gifted to the city. What a story; Ned killed himself and his secretary in one of the spare rooms. The two men had been involved in an oil scandal with Ned's father.
The whole tour was story after story like this and we whizzed around in a comfy people mover with no windows for maximum photo opportunities. We finished off driving down Rodeo Drive and all of us goggling at the outrageous displays of wealth.
Saturday night in Venice Beach was lively, we decided to go for sushi just off the main drag which was a great choice after all the chips and cookies we'd packed away during the day. The interior was sparse and urban and the sashimi was excellent.
Sunday
We had a late start over the continental breakfast included at the hotel, then walked to the achingly cool Abbot Kinney Boulevard. There are murals of the sides of buildings everywhere, and the artiness of the locals really shows. We heard stories that it's been gentrified and that had changed quite a bit over the years. But we loved it. The thought and design that had gone into every space whether it's a clothes shop or restaurant gives you so much to stop and look at.
Lunch was a huge pile of salad from Greenleaf which described themselves as a gourmet chop shop.
A sunny stroll through the canals which are a great surprise to find in such a sprawling city, and we picked up our bags from the hotel and headed back out to the airport for our 9pm flight.
An entirely different continent and three days of discovery, then back feeling refreshed. The best way to holiday.
Stay:
Inn at Venice Beach
Retro rooms with huge images everywhere of Venice Beach over the years. It felt retro and fun with pops of orange on white bedspreads. The location was fantastic: 20 minutes from the airport, right near the action, clean and quiet.
Eat:
Sushi Enya
Chef Kimiyasu Enya trained for 10 years before setting up his three restaurants in Los Angeles. The interior was industrial and all focus is on the clean bites of sashimi.
Move:
Don't even think about renting a car. We used Uber and the scooters and bikes which were everywhere, and easily unlocked with our Uber app.