La Brea Tar Pits, Beverley Hills, Hollywood and Caffe Primo

 

Our Los Angeles hotel was near a Starbucks.  Our branch of Starbucks was hidden inside an office building, and on weekday afternoons, sold half price frappes from 3pm to 5pm.  Tim and I felt like aliens buying ordinary coffees, as frappes were clearly the drinks du jour.  The office workers snapping up the frappes looked as though they worked at a trendy IT company or similar, so we felt pretty daggy in our T-shirts and jeans in that crowd.

We also headed for Starbucks for breakfast.  I bought the gorgeous slice of raspberry yoghurt loaf at the top of this post as a takeaway treat for later.  It tasted as good as it looked - a rare thing with bought cake.

I started off with a raspberry lemonade iced tea that I remembered from my last visit:
 

and supplemented it with a yoghurt and granola with blueberries:

Tim had this cheese, spinach and sun-dried tomato panini:

After breakfast, we joined our coach for a city tour of LA.  I saw this cool Chihuahua mural on the side of a building:

and this garden of lamp posts, which has apparently appeared in heaps of movies, but I've never seen it:

Our first stop was at La Brea Tar Pits:

Never fear, the elephant is not real.  However, it is rather creepy thinking about all the creatures that have drowned in the murky depths of those thick black tar pits.

Here is a little plaque explaining how the tar pits came to be gifted to the people of LA:

There are statues all over Hancock Park of animals that drowned in the tar pits:

Next stop was The Farmers Market in West Hollywood:

before continuing our journey to Beverley Hills (that's Dennis's arm in the shot): 

 

There were no swimming pools or movie stars, but there were lots of famous streets and places:

Pretty Woman anyone?

Or Norma Desmond?

We then cruised into Hollywood:

We visited Grauman's Chinese Theatre:

Here's Gregory Peck's hand and feet prints (I adore Atticus Finch) in the concrete outside the theatre:

And nearby is the Hollywood Walk of Fame:

Across the road is the famous Roosevelt Hotel:

Tim and I then went on an optional Movie Stars Homes tour - you can't not do something touristy and tacky.   Our bus driver was a lady who drove at top speed, up hill and down dale, round winding bends and through thick traffic, and all the while taking non-stop.  It was a wild ride!

Among many, many other things, we went past the infamous Chateau Marmont:

and got a fantastic view of the Hollywood sign:

and saw Mulholland Drive:

That night for dinner, Tim and I went to Caffe Primo in downtown LA:

I ordered the turkey meatloaf with brown rice and kale, a bargain at $10:

It was pretty tasty.  For dessert, Tim and I shared this lovely slice of tart:

and I finished off with a latte ($3.50):

It was a perfect end to a perfect day.

Caffe Primo

612 S Flower St, Suite 103
Los Angeles CA 90017

United States

Ph: +1 213 895 5012