So I arrived in Los Angeles a few days ago and its not difficult to see why people love Southern California so much. The hills around LA are magnificent and the beaches go on for mile after mile. Bondi looks like a play pit in comparison.
I was staying in Santa Monica which is on the northern side of LA and an easy entrance on the Pacific Coast Highway. Up in the mountains around LA is Mulholland Highway, home of the famed "snake". Basically its a twisty mountain road which ends in a 180 degree hairpin at the end. There are many YouTube videos of people riding the last bit. (And making a complete mess of it - so much so that the Police were a permanent fixture there for a while).
After a few misteps I road up the Mulholland highway to the "Rock Store", a biker hang out close to the end of the snake. It's closed during the week, but nethertheless there were a few bikers handing out and having a chin wag. They told me the final few turns were closed due to the fires, but there was a different route back to LA which had spectacular views of the sea and the valley - the Stunt road. Wonderful riding and a total joy.
The following day I had leisurely walk to Venice beach (home of muscle beach). It's a strange mix of 1 part cool shops and bars, 1 bar buskers and hustlers and 1 part vagrancy. (In fact where-ever I go in the US the level of homelessness and people pushing all their belongings is quite disturbing). The beaches themselves are fabulous and huge.
In the evening I rode up to the Griffiths Observatory which has a great view of the city. Most people seem to go for the views but, as a phyiscs graduate I would recommend the fabulous museum detailing all aspects of astronomy and cosmology. It explains how elements are created, the latest thinking on cosmology and conveys so well the sense of wonder about the natural world. It is well worth a visit. (It has a Foucault's pendulum as well - perfect for calculating the latitude of LA!). They had telescopes set up pointed at the moon and you could pick out individual craters and their depth as you looked at the edge. I could, and did, spend hours there.
After that I rode back down the Sunset strip (home of the Rainbow and Whisky a Go Go, but mainly offices these days), through Beverly Hills to Santa Monica.
One of the bikers I was chatting to was saying "Why would you live anywhere else" - it was hard to disagree.
Nice and warm now cheers