Touring L.A.

A bright and early start, we boarded the bus ready for a huge day of sight seeing in Los Angeles! The bus drove us down the coastal route, with the driver giving us an informative tour of the local area. Crusing through Orange County, Melrose, Laguna, Long Beach before arriving in downtown LA.

Our first stop for the day was Universal Studios (city walk - shops etc - no theme park today). The weather was fantastic (around 35) and gave us a wonderful view of the skyline. After an hour of looking around the area, we made our way to the Hollywood sign & star walk - where we admired the hand prints, stars on the pavement as well as the big sign made of concrete. The area was not as glitzy as we'd imagined, but impressed us none the less. We also got to see the Kodak Theatre (where the Academy Awards are held), Chinese Theatre and the many famous restaurants that were close by (celebs frequent them).

Moving on to the Farmers Market (where obviously farmers traded goods etc for many years), which is now one of the more famous shopping areas (the new building is called the Grove in appreciation) we took in the local shops, as well as admiring the old buildings etc that adorned the area. Our tour guide was rather informative here, as he had spent the past 37 years touring the Hollywood area (Welk Resorts provided this tour - 20 people in total on a coach - excellent!)

Departing the Farmers Market after a bite to eat and a good 90 minutes of touring around, we made our way to the glitz and glamour of shopping - Rodeo Drive! Celebrity spotting was going to be tough - especially with everyone driving Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette & big black SUV's. Heading into Tiffany's (window shopping only) we toured around the streets, with hundreds of tourists, taking in the sights and hopeful of scoring a bargain.....not likely! After a good chunk of time allocated to looking at the shops, hopefully seeing a celeb or two (we thought we saw Teri Hatcher.......a very good resemblance) we boarded the bus, ready for the coming trip back to the resort.

Our tour guide continually cracked jokes throughout, keeping us relaxed and continually informed us of the many wonderful sights within the area. Thankfully we took this tour, as we would have had fun trying to find all the "Hot spots" with our own car!