Hollywood! (18 April)

So, today's destination was Hollywood! Yay!  The outside temperature reading from the car also tipped 93 degrees Fahrenheit - a bit different from the snow of Bryce Canyon.

Before we got too excited, however, was the reality of driving in LA. First, we simply didn't clock that going "across town" from Anaheim to Hollywood was more than 40 miles, nor that it would take an hour and a half ... in the middle of the day.  This view is typical LA driving!

After what seemed an eternity, we arrived at our hotel, pre-registered, dropped our bags, and headed up to Griffith Park.  Like so many other tourists, our mission was to see the Hollywood sign.  Like so many other tourists, we found it was rather harder than we thought.  Griffith Park felt like being in Greece to us, given the dry hills, pine and olive trees.  We walked from the free parking (at least we felt smug we hadn't paid ten dollars!) and reached the top of the hill.

The Observatory is wonderful - there's lots to see and do inside, and best of all it's free entry (and cool inside).  There were great views of the city from the top, although the smoggy air meant that it was a bit hazy.  Again, we thought of Athens.

The view of The Sign is great with the camera zoomed in.

However, it makes for a pretty poor shot when you want someone in the foreground - the sign ends up tiny by comparison.  We therefore went on a bit of a detour through some rather lovely residential roads, most of which said "no vehicle access to Hollywood sign" in a bid to get a better photo for Tom.  This was the result - a quick snap standing in the middle of the road!

Next up, into the city proper to see the Walk of Fame.  Hollywood Boulevard is a bit of a circus; there are street entertainers, hawkers selling churros and wedges of watermelon, stalls selling plastic Oscar statuettes, political campaigners and homeless people, all bundled together in a so-called street of dreams.  First-up, the stars.  It took me a while to realise that stars are given not only for film, but also TV, radio, music recording, and live performance. Here's the star for a screen favourite of mine.

In the TV category was the star for a certain Donald Trump.  However, standing on it was a lovely gentleman campaigning for Bernie Sanders.  I didn't get his name, but he had campaigned for Bernie Sanders all the way back to his first Senate and gubernatorial elections in 1972.  He was charming and polite, and gave me a gentle ribbing about Brexit.  Fair play!