After almost two weeks of touring and 2 full on days in the heat of LA, we were in need of a more relaxing kind of day, so had planned to spend the next two days around Marina Del Ray and Santa Monica.
After the normal morning routine, Celia headed off to the Ritz-Carlton hotel just around the marina for a Pedicure and I head off for a run. I was slow but did manage almost 3 miles in just over 32 mins before heading back to the room, for a shower and to wait for Celia to get back.
After a hour of relaxing by the pool, we decided to head off for a walk to see Venice and Santa Monica. We first went through Venice itself with the Canals. This was beautiful and would be somewhere where I could live in LA.
After Venice, we headed down to the Pacific and Venice Beach, which after the tranquility of venice was a lot more busy and tacky. The whole place had that slightly seedy feel, helped by the "medical" marijuana shops, where you were asked to pop in for an evaluation to see if you needed some, from the smell it would seem that most people who enter do need it.
We soon also walked past Muscle beach with the bodybuilders working out.
And then the tacky shops started to become less frequent and the whole place become less crowded as we made our way from Venice into Santa Monica. Now you could just take the wonderful sandy beaches from the boardwalk with pedestrians having one "road" and the cyclists having there own "road" just to the side. It took us about an hour 20 mins to walk the 3.5 miles to the Santa Monica pier, and this was a great relaxing day, with nowhere to be. Once at the pier we had a look around and I had a ride on the rollercoaster, before grabbing some lunch at Rusty's Surf Ranch and then heading back to the hotel.
That evening we headed back to Santa Monica, this time by car to have dinner at Chinios on Main, this was Chinese food, done big and well. This was also the only time we saw anyone famous during the entire trip and that was Julie Hagerty (Elaine from Airplane). After Dinner we headed back to the hotel.
The following day was even less busy spending almost the whole day sitting by the pool, bar a quick walk to the cheesecake factory for some post lunch cheesecake (well actually two walks as the first one had Coconut on it so was binned after 1 bite). Dinner was taken at a lovely local restaurant, Le Cellier which had some lovely beer and an interesting combo of French and Asian cuisine.
After these relaxing days it was time to repack and head off to the last hotel of the trip and 2 part days in Disneyland.
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