A shuttle bus collected us from our hotel at 8.30 am and took us down town to meet the larger bus at 9.00 am for our tour of LA, Hollywood, Santa Monica and Venice Beach. It was small group tour of 24 people with Grand Express Tours.

We went from Anaheim to the centre of Los Angeles. The driver warned us there was not much to see there, but now we know where City Hall is when we here it on Law and Order, and we were amused to see the Bail Bonds Hotline shop – see photos.

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Next we went to Hollywood to see the famous sign on the hill. Paul talks about the origins of this sign in his movie clip. We also saw the Hollywood Walk of fame on Hollywood Boulevard and again saw lots of people dressed as characters trying to get you to pay up to $20 to have photos taken with them. There are also people who have made their won CD of singing/rap etc, which they offer to give you, then they autograph it and ask for a donation (again $20). Luckily our driver warned us but we saw lots of people being scammed in this way as they thought they were getting a CD for free. When they tried to walk away the conversation changed tone and they were pressured into giving money.

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Next we went along Seventy Seven Sunset Strip, through the edge of Beverly Hills (buses can no linger go past the stars houses or they get huge fines), and then to Rodeo Drive. We had about 20 minutes to look around here, obviously we were not dressed to enter any of the shops or buy anything, as we had shorts and joggers etc. we saw the shop where Julia Roberts was told ‘we have nothing your size, or that you could afford’ in Pretty Woman – we felt a bit like that as we walked along the street!!!! But it was good to have a look.

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Next stop was the Farmers Market for a one hour lunch break. The driver told us to grab a quick bite so we could spend the time going to The Grove to see the shops, The young ones on our tour did that. We did the opposite and went and sat in the famous Du’Pars Restaurant and Bakery and had a proper meal, then wandered back to the bus. We are a bit over shops!!! And we can’t fit anything else in our bags!!!

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Next stop was Santa Monica. As it was a Saturday the bus could not get close to the Pier, but we stopped on Ocean Street. The keen ones walked to The Pier, but we just stayed in the cool breeze and checked out Ocean Street as we only had about half an hour. We thought the beach was lovely and were amazed about how wide the sand belt is. This also means a long walk to the waters edge for a swim. There was also a large area of beach, next to The Pier, used as a carpark, that was full!!!

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Back on the bus and this time we stopped at Venice Beach. I had seen this many times on TV, showing Muscle Beach and people roller skating, rollerblading body building etc. We saw the body builders and lots of people playing half court basketball. There were lots of stalls/shops and when we arrived there was an anti abortion rally taking place. By the time we walked back to the beach entrance the rally was completely gone so we think the police may have moved them on.

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I was disappointed as the image I had of this place from TV was nothing like what we actually saw. The TV shows have done a great job of promoting a very plain area. Anyway, we are glad we have seen it as it is a famous landmark that is world renowned.

We were back on the bus by 3.30 pm and as we were the last to he dropped of at our hotel we got back about 5.15 pm. The advantage of this is that we get to see where all the other hotels are and get a good look around the area.

We had a good day, but we were both glad it was only an 8 hour day rather than a really long day as we had had for the last couple. We again went to JT Schmidt’s Hotel across the road for some dinner, then packed and got ready for our flight to Hawaii the next day.