Los Angeles is so central to any Californian experience. We ended up coming in and out of the city a number of times. As written about in a previous post, we landed at LAX from Mexico and spent our first night in the USA on a freebie night in a mediocre hotel close to the airport giving the girls their first taste of great American food (Molly complaining there was no lettuce in her McDonald’s burger).

We next hit the sprawling suburbs (or traffic) on our route through SoCal in our camper van, from Santa Barbara to Orange County.   

We cleverly decided that this would be the best time to visit the Getty Center, as we had our own transport and would be pretty much driving past it on our way south. 

Designed by Richard Meier, the complex opened in 1997 and is spectacularly located high in the San Gabriel Mountains with views across the city of vineyards and mansions and down to the ocean. 

After a fun ride in an autonomous tram from the parking area (we parked alongside the school buses!), we started with a picnic lunch in the gardens, admiring some outdoor sculptures and the sheer magnificence of the exterior of the buildings, covered in travertine stone from Italy. 

We decided to take a Collection highlights tour with Louise, to give us a whistle-stop overview of the art collection. She made it very engaging, we particularly enjoyed copying poses by old masters and spent quite some time in the photography section. This was the first of many art museums we were going to visit in the next couple of weeks (unwittingly getting our fill before over a year of world-wide closures).

Our final two nights in the camper were at Anaheim Harbor RV Park, a pleasant enough site, although we didn’t spend much time there – arriving in the dark. That first night Tom and I sat out, warmed by a gas fire enjoying the fireworks display from nearby Disneyland. We decided not to wake the girls to see it, as we thought they would have the chance to watch it the next night (unfortunately we didn’t know it was going to be cancelled due to the weather!) 

We woke early and with excitement building, we headed straight to the bus after breakfast, arriving at Disneyland at 9am as the doors opened. We had roughly sketched out which rides we wanted to do, so decided to start in Fantasyland with A Small World. It remained Joanna’s favourite of the day!

It seemed an appropriate place to start, the girls rather embarrassingly loudly pointing out all the countries we had been to on Egerton World Tour.  

‘The Happiest Cruise that ever sailed ‘round the world!’ 

Next we went underwater in the Finding Nemo Submarine, then on the rather boring monorail around the park to get our bearings. We gradually built up our thrill factor with the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, Mr Toad’s Wild Ride and Pirates of the Caribbean – which got a bit scary, so we calmed down in Winnie the Pooh and by a visit to Sleeping Beauty’s castle. 

We enjoyed interacting with some Disney princesses walking around and listening to a brass band. 

Another highlight for MoJo was watching Beauty and the Beast and Tangled at the theatre. 

Joanna emerged from the front seat in the Matterhorn Bobsleigh very wet and a bit traumatized by the woolly mammoth that seemed to jump out at her! 

We walked across to Star Wars new land ‘Galaxy’s Edge’, spotting a man acting as a R2D2 controller. Tom went on the Millennium Falcon while we went on the Pinocchio ride and back to the theatre. 

After a dinner of burritos, we timed it well to see the Mickey Mouse show, followed by a stroll around Toontown, enjoying the Roger Rabbit ride, exploring Mickey and Minnie houses, Donald Duck boat and treehouse and queuing to meet Mickey where we failed to get his autograph (Tom tried to get him to sign a $bill but that’s not allowed).

With renewed energy and aided by free spots thanks to our fast-track passes collected during the day, we ended on a high with Space Mountain, Star Tours and Big Thunder Mountain as it was getting dark. We had hit 12 hours inside the park!

Despite no fireworks, we enjoyed the Fantasmic! light show, before heading back to the camper around 10pm.

The next morning it was time to return the camper to El Monte RV, getting our first of many LA Uber rides to our hotel AC Marriott Beverly Hills. It was a short walk through some lovely residential streets in Beverly Hills to the Original Farmers Market at 3^rd and Fairfax, our first stop on the brilliant itinerary supplied by our wonderful friend Steff Sykes. 

There was much for all of us to enjoy, Tom finding a ‘Light my Fire’ chili shop he had visited when last in LA in 2000, buying a birthday present for Joanna from a great toyshop and plenty of delicious food stations – most of us still in a taco mood and loving Trejos Tacos, Molly unusually selecting a salmon crepe. 

There was a particularly lively atmosphere as Mardi Gras celebrations were underway with live music, the kids were handed out beads.  

We walked out to the rather sophisticated Grove shopping area, admiring the trolley bus and buying some Girl Scout cookies. I was delighted to buy some new Havaiana flipflops and we spent far too long in the engrossing world of American Girl, allowing the girls to choose a doll each as a memento. (Julie and Mary Ellen) 

Next stop was an Uber up to the Griffith Observatory. It was a beautiful drive accompanied by dramatic skies and incredible views of the city below us once we reached the top.

We spent quite some time enjoying the view and posing in front of the Hollywood sign. What tourists. 

Thinking it was about time we did something educational, we signed up to a show in the Planetarium about the history of the universe – fascinating. 

We only had time for quick showers before getting to Soowon Galbi for a Korean BBQ dinner reunion with Steff. We were of course pros on Korean food and had missed it since we were there in October – LA certainly does so many global cuisines superbly. 

I went for an early morning run down to Beverley Centre, through the design district and up to the Hollywood strip, stopping to admire the wall of fame and stars. 

Our weekend really begins with a rather strange but delicious breakfast of burritos, donuts, and vegan tacos at Smorgasburg at the Alameda Produce Market in Downtown. 

Time for some more culture: the queue for the Broad was long so we sneakily took turns with loo stops and a first look at MOCA (The Museum of Contemporary Art) across the road. The girls particularly loved the family guide activities and in particular Mason Williams life-size print of a greyhound bus. 

Back to the Broad, we made it in and were blown away by the building itself with its long escalators snaking past the storage vault (with some well-positioned John Baldessari works). Highlights for us were the vast canvases by Mark Bradford (who’s exhibition we had seen in Shanghai) Jeff Koons, William Kentridge animation and a Yayoi Kusama infinity room (with memories of our time in Naoshima).

Back at MOCA we enjoyed a Bacci chocolate courtesy of Felix Gonzalez-Torres and an exhibition of pattern and decoration in American art in the 1970s and 1980s. 

We were perfectly positioned to take a ride in Angels Flight, a vintage funicular railway down to the Broadway. 

At Grand Central Market we met a colleague and friend of mine from Venice days, Morgan. He advised us to check out the Bradbury Building across the street where Bladerunner and a number of other films were set. More exciting in fact was catching a car chase being filmed on a nearby street junction for a Nissan advert! 

We went onto the Arts District, enjoying the incredible buildings of Hauser and Wirth, surprised by the chickens and herbs in the garden area and taking in the brilliant exhibition ‘Walking the Space’ curated by Luca Massimo Barbero of Lucio Fontana’s light installations. 

After having a quick look at a number of nearby breweries, we eventually decide to have sushi for dinner, which we hadn’t eaten since we were in Japan. 

Our final day in LA began with a Steff meet up again, to have a private tour of the incredible new Academy Museum on Wiltshire Boulevard, promising to be a major highlight of Miracle Mile and indeed the city. When we were there the opening was going to be a few months after we visited but was substantially delayed.

Designed by Renzo Piano, its standalone dome structure and sequence of bridges and interior theatres and spaces makes the most of its dramatic location. They also hand out the best hard hats, badges and totes.

Its neighbour is LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) so the plan for the rest of the day was to take in the museum’s exhibits, starting and ending with Chris Burden’s Urban Light.

We visited a mid-career survey show of Julie Methetu’s complex and enthralling paintings, prints and drawings.

We walked under the dramatic Levitated Mass by Michael Heizer on route to meet Steff for a Vietnamese lunch at Saigon Pearl LA.

It was another great meal reminiscing of cuisines enjoyed earlier on Egerton World Tour, taking in delicious bowls of Pho and some monster hugs.

Back to LACMA for an afternoon stint of culture, we kicked off in the kids’ zone alongside a monumental Richard Serra, creating cityscape collages. 

We were all fascinated watching Chris Burden’s Metropolis II being activated: giving a bird’s eye perspective of trains and cars moving in a miniature city. 

We walked along to the Tar Pitts park next door, learning about mammoths and other remarkable feats of nature, and then chose Counter for a final burger dinner (sadly never making it to the Cali highlight In-N-Out). 

It was time to take a night flight from the West Coast to the East, appropriately eating an apple pie at the airport before boarding our flight to our next and final stop: the big apple.