California/Mexican Vacation: Santa Monica/Venice Beach/Marina Del Ray

October 18th 2018 LA
Santa Monica/Venice Beach/Marina Del Ray




Once we got on the new bus line the yellow route, we were on our way to Santa Monica. I have to say we really did take advantage of the bus tour and maxed out our opportunity while visiting LA.

On our way to Santa Monica we enjoyed some of the sights. Our narrator continue to offer up information about each building and street.

The church below was where Liz Taylor was married. For the first time. 

We past along the Historic Rt. 66. I didn't even realize this was here. I was so excited to be traveling along this road I have always wanted to take. It still will be on my bucket list. 

 This building with a hole through the center was created both with design and to withstand earthquakes. (I think) 

Fox studios. 

And soon we were at Santa Monica Pier. 

The drop off was directly across from the Santa Monica Pier.




 It was a pleasant ride and we both were excited to take a walk down the pier.



Below is from the small park overlooking the pier. This park has the only restroom that we noticed available and the homelessness was everywhere here. We entered the bathroom during a fight that was happening. Everyone heard some choice words before we headed to the much more touristy pier location.

Mark and I strolled down to the pier and enjoyed the many street performers along the dock. There were all kinds of performers. I'd say this is the way to make a living. All day in the sun right by the beach.  There were several musicians.

and even some games of chance.






The water looked very inviting.

There were also several shops, restaurants and the very end of the MOTHER ROAD. Route 66. Mark reminded me of Forest Gump's run to the pier. There seems to be several reference to that movie everywhere.

a Bubba Gump....

 Along the pier is also an amusement park, a ball room, and an acrobatic school.
Mark and I didn't spend to much time on the dock. We had more things on our to do list. So we headed to the bus stop and waited for the next adventure.



The next bus took its loop to Venice Beach as well as Marina Del Ray. We opted out of getting off the bus at Venice Beach. Perhaps if we planned to swim it would have been on our list, but instead we road straight through to Marina Del Ray.

pictures along  Venice beach.

It looks beautiful. Mark and I discussed attempting this at home. Nope never gonna happen.

As we rounded the corner we came upon a fight. The guy on the scooter was yelling at the driver.

Although we only heard yelling, I am guessing that the car nearly hit this guy on the scooter and he was letting the driver know. The scooter's female friend arrived soon and she had a few choice things to say as well.

and we were again off.....

We drove past several of the Venice area canals. These man made canal systems were the brain child of Abbott Kenny in 1905. The dream was to re-create Venice Italy in California. The original canal system had bridges and gondola and was quite popular. This was until access to the automobile. In 1929 several of the canals were filled in to create roads. By the 1940's the system was falling apart. It was not until 40 years later that the area was deemed a historic landmark and began refurbishment. 

Marina Del Ray feeds those canals still left as it once did several years earlier.


The Marina is also man made and the largest one in the United states. There are an incredible number of boats docked within the bay area. Many of the area activities include all types of boating including paddle and kayak.

 It was getting close to dinner time and we wanted to stop at Pinks and the LaBrea Tar pits. We were soon back at Santa Monica, but time was not on our side as it had been most of the day. The 20 minutes between bus's seemed to be slower and we wasted a lot of time at Marina Del Ray. If you can live without seeing several boats docked in many rows, then I would recommend that you skip Marina Del Ray. This additional trip took over an hour 1/2 into our day.

It is a cute area, but not a whole lot to do. Mark and I were anxious to get back on the bus and head to the next destination.

 Once the tour bus was ready to go, we loaded up and headed back to Santa Monica to catch the red line back to Hollywood. This stop and the long way back to Hollywood (waiting for two buses) ate a good chuck of our day up. The changing of the bus lines was one of the disadvantages of the bus line tours. We were totally at the mercy of the bus times and if we missed one or one was stopped at a location, We were stuck waiting too. 

We did enjoy the ride back to Santa Monica. There were several sights to see. Above is pier at Venice beach. After the dud at Maria Del Ray, I was wishing we had gotten off at the beach instead.

There were some interesting sights through Venice like this clown/ballerina statue. "Clownerina" apparently will kick her/his leg our throughout the day.

A few more sights along the way after transferring from the Santa Monica towards Hollywood.

Like UCLA.

Our connecting bus from Santa Monica to Hollywood went through Beverly Hills. We got to revisit some of the area we had seen earlier.

The Beverly Wilshire Hotel again

This statue of John Wayne.

and this really cool building.

We had originally wanted to stop at the LaBrea Tar pits, but it was getting late and we were getting  hungry and had plans to eat dinner at Pinks. We committed to going tomorrow.

We did have to pass by the tar pits to get Melrose Ave. 

The park area looks enjoyable.

We also passed by this interesting sculpture. "Urban Light" is a structure made up of 202 restored lampposts. It is part of the LMCMA. Los Angles County Museum of Art.

We also passed by CBS studios.

Soon we were on own way to Melrose and making our way to a long awaited dinner. Something of interest about Melrose Ave. Remember the tv show Melrose Place. Well there is a real st named Melrose Place, but it is nowhere near the area off of Melrose Ave. TTFN






















We also seemed to wait for a long time to return to the red line once we were in Santa Monica. The red line really has the most popular stops. Even so, we were soon on our way back towards Hollywood. TTFN