El Pueblo de Los Angeles

The journey back to Los Angeles was pretty straightforward, although the roads were quite busy and the temperature was over 25° C.

Before going to our next hotel, we stopped at the pueblo in downtown LA where one of the oldest streets is situated. We'd been to Olvera Street when we came in 1988 and on that occasion it was a Sunday and it was a very vibrant and noisy place with bands playing and lots of people around. On a Tuesday afternoon in February it was a bit quieter but it was still lovely to see the brightly coloured stalls selling a range of things from shoes to wraps and toys.

While we're in the downtown area, we also walked along to see the Catholic cathedral. En route, we passed justice department and county courts both in impressive buildings. Cathedral itself is relatively modern structure with big block work and nothing of the traditional cathedral you might think of when you consider how cathedrals tend to look.

By now it's almost 4:00 p.m. and so we made our way back to the car and drove the short 15-minute drive to our next hotel, the Kimpton Everly. We checked in and found our rooms, both of which overlook the hill with the Hollywood sign on.

After a quick dip in the pool we got ready for the social drinks hour until wait the arrival of Marcia who was joining us for a meal. After a couple of drinks and once Marcia had arrived we walked to the short distance to the restaurant that I booked and sat outside sharing plates of burgers, pasta and sea bass.

We walked back to the hotel and spent some time chatting to Marcia before she left and we headed to bed.Read more