If you love Hollywood movies then you must stop in Los Angeles. As part of our 2 weeks in California, we spend 4 nights and 5 days between Los Angeles and Laguna Beach. Los Angeles is a busy city and Laguna Beach is the perfect spot to recharge!

Itinerary:

• Day 1: Hollywood Walk of Fame, The Getty Museum
• Day 2: Paramount Studio, Beverly Hills, Warner Bros Studio, Observatory
• Day 3: Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Laguna Beach
• Day 4: Laguna Beach
• Day 5: Laguna Beach, Venice Beach, Santa Monica Pier

Day by day

Day 1: Hollywood Walk of Fame, The Getty Museum, (Saturday 30 September)

We arrived in Los Angeles at about 2pm from Morro bay (previous steps of the trip here). We stopped at our AirBnB located 20 min south of the the Walk of Fame and walked to this busy area. We strolled on the Hollywood Boulevard, trying to find the stars of our favorite actors and their hands marks in the Chinese Theatre. It’s not a location where we would spend a full day but it was good to spend an hour.

Our second stop of the day is the Getty museum. We went there by using the famous Mulholland drive. The museum is free (not the parking) but we had to book an entry time online few days in advance. From the parking we took the short tramway ride to reach the museum. The recent building is very well located and gives nice few over the city. It also has a nice garden to visit. Inside the exposition are often rotating. The pieces that we enjoyed the most were some Giacometti sculptures, and some Monet paintings. The building and the views at sunset were also in the highlights of the visit.

To finish the day we went for diner at Tesse Restaurant. We were positively surprised by the quality of the food and the wine. The pathe was as good as what we could have in France and all the other dishes were very good.

Day 2: Paramount Studio, Beverly Hills, Warner Bros Studio, Observatory (Sunday 1st October)

(We visited the studio during a movie industry strike, therefore the visit we had might be different than the normal visit)

We had nothing planned for this day and we decided at the last minute to book the 9am tour at Paramount Studio. We arrived a little bit in advance and after the check-in we waited in the first room which contains some Oscars, a Top Gun movie helmet, and few other pieces. At 9am multiple guides arrived and we were broken down into small groups (6 to 8 people).

The 1st step of the visit was about holding a real Oscar. We then embarked into a golf cart and the guide drove us around the studios with many stops. Some of the highlight of the visit for us were:

• The old historic building of the studios and how the site has evolved over time.
• The explanation about how the movie making process worked at the beginning, how the actors were hired, how all the functions to make a movie were concentrated at the same place.
• The fake city, with a lot of different type of building in a very small space and the possibility to see inside how it was done.
• Some anecdote about famous films
• The big empty studio and the pool
• The quality of the guide, we did not asked but she was sounding like a student in movie industry.

Even if we didn’t had all the references about some old movies we found this visit very interesting and decided to book the Warner Bros Studio visit for the end of the afternoon.

Between our studio tours we went to Beverly Hills. We parked on Santa Monica Blvd a little bit north east of the Beverly Hills City Hall, and walked to Rodeo Drive. As we were a Sunday the Beverly Hills Farmers Market was open and we stopped to buy some bread. The Rodeo Drive visit was fast, and we went back to the car by walking around the houses north of Santa Monica Blvd. After this short walk we drove to Bel-Air to see some of the very expensive houses.

It was then time to go to our Warner Bros Studio visit on the other side of the Hollywood Hills. The Warner Bros Studio visit was different than the Paramount one. After the check-in we were in a room with some screens, when we were ready we went for the start of the tour. The tour started by a video in a theater. After that we went inside carts by groups of about 16 peoples (1 raw of the theater). The tour in the golf cart ended in a nice expo around the most recent movies, and at the very end we were able to take a picture in the Friends sofa. Some of the highlight of the visit for us were:

• Seeing an empty studio and a studio fully ready film. We were not allowed to take picture but we visited all the different set used for the TV show All American. It was very impressive to walk from the gym to the classroom and the different scenery. It’s amazing how many different set they can have in a very small space.
• During the tour they had videos showing how the roads or buildings are transformed to make a specific movie compare to how it is when you visit it.
• The last expo was containing a lot of costumes or other elements from recent DC movies. Like the Batman car or the Aquaman costume.
• If you want to buy souvenir they have a lots of items to buy from Friends or other of their most popular TV shows.

Both tours are great, they are very different and complementary. If you are interested by some of the recent Warner Bros TV show then you will love the Warner Bros tour. On our side we slightly preferred the Paramount tour, one of the main raison for that was the guide which looked like (and maybe was) a passionate movie student at Paramount, versus the Warner Bros guide who was more a typical tour guy with certainly a passion for the movie industry but who looked less authentic.

To finish our day we drove to the observatory parking and took the short walk to reach the observatory. The sunset from this point was beautiful even if the area was very crowded.

Day 3: Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Laguna Beach (Monday 2nd October)

We started our day by a breakfast at Lo/Cal Coffee & Market – Fairfax which is close by the Academy Museum of Motion Picture. At 10am, when the Museum open (and at the time of our ticket) we entered the museum and visited all the floors. The museum contains some interesting exposition but I think that if I had to choose between the studio visits and the museum I would choose the studio (they are also more expensive).

The visit of the museum was the last part of our Hollywood tour. Our next step was to go to Laguna beach which is about 1h30min south east. On our way to Laguna beach we stopped by Monkish brewing in Trenton for lunch. If you like Hazy IPA, Monkish is an amazing brewery to visit in LA. They have very good double and triple IPAs. When we visited their was no food truck and the brewery only had few customers (Which is understandable for a Monday at noon). But we enjoyed eating our picnic outside and discussing with the brewers who were trying some of the beers. We also purchased few cans to bring back home.

After this good stop for lunch we continued our driving along the coast and arrived to Laguna Beach. We checked-in at our hotel and went walking in the Heisler park (Alltrails link) and in Laguna beach. At sunset the Heisler park is the dream post card of what you imagine from California: Ocean, sunset, palm trees,… For Dinner we continued our brewery tour and walked to Laguna Beach brewing. The beer were not as good as Monkish but we had few good ones and also enjoyed their sandwiches.

Day 4: Laguna Beach (Tuesday 3rd October)

We planned this day as a resting day to finish our busy 2 weeks trip. We started by a short run in the Heisler park and in Laguna Beach. We then took a breakfast at our hotel.

To continue the day we went to the Spectrum Mall. Ariana was used to go to this mall when she was younger and we were hopping to find some souvenirs. Unfortunatly the surf shops in the mall were not having a lot of localized products (we were looking for Laguna Beach t-Shirt as example). And the mall was not as wonderful as in Ariana memories (still a nice mall if you are looking for one).

Our next step was to check some beaches south from Laguna beach. One of the most iconic is Thousand steps beach in South Laguna. To access it we had to use the stairs with 220 steps (and not 1000 steps). This beach is beautiful with cliffs all around and impressive villas on top of the cliffs.

We finished our lazy day by chilling at the hotel. For diner we walk one more time along the Heisler park which was still amazing at sunset and ate at South of Nick. This was a good restaurant choice.

Day 5: Laguna Beach, Venice Beach, Santa Monica Pier

This was our last day but our flight was leaving Los Angeles airport during the night so we still had time to visit more places. We started the day by walking to Laguna beach to buy some picnics and to visit the different surf shop to find some souvenir t-shirts. We were happily surprised to find some very French product in Moulin for our picnic.

We then left Laguna Beach and went to visit Venice Beach and Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles. Venice Beach is a very large and long beach with a lot of touristic shops along the promenade. We didn’t stopped at any of the shops but spent some time watching the skaters in the skate park.

At the north of Venice beach we visited the famous Santa Monica Pier that we often saw on the movies and the TV shows. It was just a quick visit to see this spot. I’m happy we saw Venice beach and the Santa Monica Pier but if we had less time it’s something we could have skipped.

Our last step was to go to Los Angeles airport to drop the rental car and take our plane.

Reflecting on the itinerary

Los Angeles is a very famous city and I’m happy we visited it. But If we were going again in the area we would certainly skip the city or maybe just stop for a day at the few places that we liked. Laguna Beach is a great destination if you want to enjoy quiet beaches and walk along the coast. Spending few days here at the end of our busy trip was a great idea.

You can use the Map below to see the full itinerary of our 2 weeks in California. And this link for an overview of the overall 2 weeks trip.