By this time in the Holiday, the Time difference and long days were starting to catch up with us so it was a bit harder to get up this morning when the alarm sounded, but as we were off to Warner Brothers Studio there was a good motivation, so after the normal morning routine and breakfast in the hotel, where service was a little bit faster but still laid back, we were into the car and headed for the freeways.
We had decided that the next couple of days we would rather just spend around the hotel rather than continuing to explore LA, as after just the one day exploring yesterday and knowing that we will also do some more today that that would be enough. So whilst Celia drove to the Studios, I was online (got to love a working US 3G Sim) cancelling our reservation at Spago and instead booking a table for two at Chinois in Santa Monica. Both of these are Wolfgang Puck restaurants.
We had taken the 405 (Santa Monica Freeway) and then the 101, both of which were quiet and we were very glad that today was a public holiday which must have limited the amount of traffic on the roads, so we were early getting to the Warner Brothers Parking lot. After a quick chat with the Security guard and a photo with the Bronze statues of Bugs and Daffy we headed pass security checks and into the Store/Waiting area.
Most of the store was based arround just a couple of franchises "Friends", "Harry Potter", "Game of Thrones" and "Big Bang Theory", but it still looked like some nice stuff, we were soon up for our tour and lined up to enter through a door into a small cinema where we had a short film on the history of Warner Brothers, and then we were divided up into 2 groups for the tram tour.
The tour was fascinating and it was so interesting to see that even the carpark and offices were fare game for production use.
The carpark doubled as the Helicopter pad for years on ER.
and these offices also were used as the production office in Argo.
The rest of the backlot part of the tour spent time in streets that look mostly like big cities or more open suburbia areas but all are generic enough that they can be changed to look like anywhere USA. We were told that the only rules on using these backlot areas was that the place had to be returned to exactly as it was handed over, so we did see a house that they had driven a car into and was now being returned to working order.
After the backlot we were taken past the manufacturing shops to a store area where they had multiple vehicles from various movies.
After this we were taken into a spare lot, now most stages are disposed off once the show has come to an end, but at WB one show was so popular and loved that they kept the set after the show has been long gone.
Welcome to Central Perk.
The main view is how small and crowded the set was, but we were assured that it was always this small and the actors never walked directly from the door to the couch as that would have made it seem small, so they always zigzagged to make the walk longer.
From the set we headed to the props store, wow it was like the worlds largest home store, with everything you could ever want all with price tags attached to hire by the day, week or month. Some of the stuff was real, others fake
The bowls were rubber/plastic rather than the wood that they look like.
The tour was coming to an end now, but we did have a quick drive through the sound stages, all had signs showing the major productions that had been shot in them. We were taken into 1 set, which is where they now shoot "Big Bang Theory" but the sets were in clean down mode as the show was on a break for the start of summer. we were also banned from taking cameras (or even phones) into the set.
And with that we were done the 3 hours had shot by, we would so recommend this tour to anyone with any interest in TV or movie in LA, and a lot better than the homes tour we had been on the day before. After a quick few bits picked up in the store, couple of T-Shirts and some pins, and we were done. As we were in Burbank we did not head straight back to LA as there was somewhere I needed to see, so after a short drive we found ourselves on Alameda Avenue and the entrance to Walt Disney Studios.
Sadly Walt Disney do not do public tours so I was left to just look on from the gates, but at least I had been there, then we got back in the car and headed back to LA. We parked up at the Beverly Centre and decided to walk to Rodeo drive, as on a map it did not seem that far, but in the heat of LA, it was a good hour or so, so it was gone 4 by the time we got there and there was a distinct lack of anywhere to eat, so we walked half way back to the beverly centre, before seeing a bus that gut feel said was heading in the right direction we hopped on, to be told that the cash fare machine was broken BUT we could ride for free.
We finally had lunch just after 5 pm at Souplantion (which is the other name for Sweet Tomatoes) a great cheap place for food, as the all you can eat Salad bar, plus breads, soups, drinks and desserts is a great concept. Filled up and with the day heading to an end, we were going to leave LA and spend the next two days in and around the hotel, but on the epic walk earlier we had noticed that LA now has a Georgetown Cupcake shop, so we had to see if they were still open on the drive back to grab some for me, as Celia still had hers from Babycakes NYC that we got yesterday.
We got back to the hotel and had some of the cupcakes and had an early night.
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