Hollywood

Today we left Anaheim and moved to North Hollywood to explore Universal Studios and of course Hollywood, this will saved us time as Anaheim is too far away.

After checking out I went to pick up the car to Alamo's depot in Anaheim, just around the corner from the hotel. Even though I grew up in Peru driving on the right, I've been in Australia for the past 4 years so it took me a while to get use to drive on the other side of the road.

I studied the map carefully so I knew the road perfectly, it was actually quite easy, we needed to follow Santa Ana freeway all the way to down town LA and from there follow Hollywood freeway until it crossed over Ventura Freeway. The hotel was not far from there.

This time we were in the Beverly Garland's holiday inn. The rooms were a bit more comfortable and the hotel has a good restaurant. Maybe the best service the hotel offers is a shuttle bus to Universal Studios including an stopover at the Metro station so after unpacking a few things we had lunch at the hotel and then use the shuttle to access the metro to Hollywood.

We left at Hollywood and Highland station, this is a shopping centre conveniently located in the centre of Hollywood boulevard, from the top floor we had our first glance at the famous Hollywood sign.

Next to the H&H we found the Kodak Theatre where the Oscar ceremony is held every year, we didn't pay the fee for the tour and kept walking to the Chinese theatre and the walk of fame instead. Many re-known names were there include the ones of Kevin Costner, Eddie Murphy among others. All sort of street performers gathered around here, a couple dressed up as the Jocker and the Riddle followed us all the time and got a photo with Ximena, then there was a guy dress up as a statue that put up a really good show.

Further down the road we came to the Hollywood museum and several vehicles of all sort offering tours to Beverly Hills, we didn't really feel like going to have a look at the houses of the rich and famous so we skipped them.

Back to the metro this time on opposite side of the road we bought some souvenirs in one of the many shops. We also run into a Peruvian musician that gave Ximena a panpipe.Read more