Tuesday, July 30, 2013

LA - a City of Contrasts

We have seen a vast array of different cultures in this giant sprawling metropolis.

Visiting Downtown. we visited the Walt Disney Theatre with its stunningly modern architecture and its great support for the arts.  Nearby was the City Hall with its marble columns and traditional architecture where we went up a series of lifts to the open air observation deck where we could look over the sprawling city as far as the eye could see.

we also visited MOCA - the Museum of Contemporary Art with an eclectic and interesting collection including a house made of bread that we walked inside.  It is slowly disintegrating and is due to be destroyed next month.

A long bus trip to Santa Monica took us through many districts and socio economic districts - Hispanic, Korean, Japanese, super rich Beverly Hills and rodeo Drive until we reached the seaside houses of Santa Monica overlooking the pier out into the Pacific. The beach was huge but the car was king.  There are 27 million cars in LA and a goodly portion of them was parked on the beach at Santa Monica.

Just a few kms down the beachfront is Venice Beach.  A teenage hip version of the flower power people of the 60s and 70s was on parade. The only people older than us were busking in a rock band.
 
Our final cultural experience was the Getty Museum.  This is worth visiting for the architecture alone and its location on a hill on the city's outskirts. This is a private museum with an outstanding representative collection - all quality.  Our favourites were the Impressionists and the 18th century French decorative arts.

                                         No room for swimmers with all these cars at the beach.
                                          The Getty Museum
                                                   Renoir's La Promenade
                                          The Getty Maze
                                        Gail and Jeanie in the Bread House at MOCA.

2 comments:

David said...

Getty maze looks kind of cool

Anonymous said...

I was looking forward to photos of you working out at Muscle Beach, just down a bit from Santa Monica.
xo
Amanda