Santa Monica

For our second day in LA we visited Santa Monica by bus. From the hotel we walked for 25 minutes south along Vine Street, waited 25 minutes at a Santa Monica Boulevard bus stop and sat on the bus for over an hour as it trundled for several miles, stopping at stops and traffic lights before eventually arriving. While at $1.75 per ride bus travel is cheap we are changing our minds about it being ‘easy’ to get around LA on public transport and agreed that if budget permits then hiring a car may be better…

Santa Monica had a chilled, laid back atmosphere and it was lovely to walk along the pier in the sun listening to various street musicians and smell typical seaside food smells. In fact it was not that different from a stroll along Brighton Pier in the summer.

We had a delicious smoothie and healthy snack in the True Food Kitchen and had a wander through the Santa Monica Place, an open air shopping mall which still had its Christmas decorations.