Lake Balboa and Calabasas peak

Some photos from a long weekend spent visiting Lake Balboa and hiking to the top of Calabasas Peak, in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Ventura

Here are some photos from a trip we took last weekend to Ventura, in California. It's a charming town an hour from LA, with the added bonus of being the conceptual home of none other than Perry Mason! Those of you under the age of 30 can carry on looking non-plussed...

LA's natural beauty

For all the accusations of LA being a culture-less concrete jungle with no soul and too many drive-thrus, there's no denying the natural beauty of this place.

The mountainous regions are a particular favourite of ours. Over the past few weeks we've visited Malibu Creek State Park (where parts of TV series M*A*S*H was filmed), Will Rogers State Park and Zuma Beach in Malibu. You're instantly able to hike a few miles, take in the fresh air and amazing views and wonder which movies and TV programmes used those locations for filming. All a short drive away, and you're always guaranteed abundant parking...

Malibu Creek State Park

 

Will Rogers State Park

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas time, Zuma Beach, Malibu

San Francisco...Universal Studios...Christmas in California

We've had a busy few weeks recently, so I'll keep the text short and let you enjoy the photos from our travels. Autumn and Winter in California has arrived, which means some rain but temperatures still in the low 20s. If it wasn't for the leaves on the trees you'd think this was summer in the UK...I attended and helped out at the Go Campaign Gala a few weeks ago, which was my first foray into a glamorous charity event. Really great fun and a lot of money was raised which is the most important thing.

San Francisco was great; it rained a lot but even with the rain it's a fantastic city. San Franciscans must have the strongest leg muscles in the world. We loved the hilly streets, but getting back to our hotel at night (The Fairmont atop of Nob Hill) after a few drinks was an entertaining struggle.

We had lots of fun at Universal Studios in Hollywood yesterday, discovering some of the secrets behind the movies and enjoying some great 3D rides at the Terminator 2 experience and King Kong ride during the studio tour. The studio tour was very slick. Sets included those from Psycho and War of The Worlds (where they used a real jumbo jet, by the way. Some of the sheen of Hollywood was rubbed away (like seeing where Desperate Housewives is filmed, discovering that Jaws and Murder She Wrote shared the same set, and seeing the pillared entrance to 'Lyon Estates' from Back to the Future, now marking the entrance to a trailer park) but it's gripping at the same time. For those of you who know about 'Skull Island' in King Kong, the set they built (a small lake and even smaller replica ship, to build the CGI around), is fascinating. If you're into that sort of thing of course. Oh, and we went to Jurassic Park, too! The dinosaurs were very friendly.


 We topped off the weekend with a visit to our friends Darek and Iwona's apartment, taking in a great firework display and boatshow and marvelling at the Christmas decorations in people's front yards. Thanks for your hospitality guys, we had a great time!

 

 

 

 

 

The Getty Center

We took a trip to the Getty Center yesterday; J Paul Getty's hilltop museum housing paintings, sculpture and photography from around the world.

The Getty Center's views are quite amazing as you'll see from the photos. The grounds, gardens and buildings are attractions in themsevles.

Another blazing hot day (you tend to forget it's late October) and not a cloud in the sky gave us some ideal photo opportunities, with the ocean on one side and downtown LA on the other...